HOME  FIRES 
IN  FRANCE 


DOROTHY  CANFIELD 


GIFT   OF 


/ 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


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HENRY   HOLT  AND   COMPANY 
Publishers  New  York 


HOME   FIRES  IN  FRANCE 


By 
DOROTHY  CANFIELD 

Author  of  "The  Bent  Twig,"  "The  Squirrel-Cage," 
"Hillsboro  People,"  etc. 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 
1918 


f. 


COPYRIGHT,  19x8, 

BY 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


PRINTED  IN  THE  U.  S. 


THE    QOINN    A    BOOEN    CO.    P«I! 
RAHWAY,    N.   t. 


DEDICATED 

TO 
GENERAL  PERSHING 


415055 


:  i-  • 


PUBLISHER'S  NOTE 

This  book  is  fiction  written  in  France  out  of  a  life 
long  familiarity  with  the  French  and  two  years'  in 
tense  experience  in  war  work  in  France.  It  is  a  true 
setting-forth  of  personalities  and  experiences,  French 
and  American,  under  the  influence  of  war.  It  tells 
what  the  war  has  done  to  the  French  people  at  home. 
In  a  recent  letter,  the  author  said,  "  What  I  write  is 
about  such  very  well-known  conditions  to  us  that  it 
is  hard  to  remember  it  may  be  fresh  to  you,  but  it 
is  so  far  short  of  the  actual  conditions  that  it  seems 
pretty  pale,  after  all." 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Notes  from  a  French  Village  in  the  War  Zone     .  i 

The    Permissionaire          .........  27 

Vignettes  from  Life  at  the  Rear 60 

A  Fair  Exchange 84 

The  Refugee in 

A  Little  Kansas  Leaven 132 

Eyes  for  the  Blind 173 

The  First  Time  After 194 

Hats 204 

A  Honeymoon  .    .    .  Vive  TAmerique!       .        .        .  227 

La  Pharmacienne 259 


HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

NOTES  FROM  A  FRENCH  VILLAGE  IN 
THE  WAR  ZONE 

PERHAPS  the  first  thing  which  brought  our  boys  to  a 
halt,  and  a  long,  long  look  around  them,  was  the  age 
of  the  place.  Apparently  it  has — the  statement  is  hardly 
exaggerated — always  been  there.  As  a  matter  of  his 
torical  fact  it  has  been  there  for  more  than  a  thousand 
years.  On  hearing  that,  the  American  boys  always 
gasped.  They  were  used  to  the  conception  of  the  great 
age  of  "  historical "  spots,  by  which  they  meant  cities 
in  which  great  events  have  occurred — Paris,  Rome, 
Stratford-on-Avon,  Granada.  But  that  an  inconsider 
able  settlement  of  a  thousand  inhabitants,  where  nothing 
in  particular  ever  happened  beyond  the  birth,  life,  and 
death  of  its  people,  should  have  kept  its  identity  through 
a  thousand  years  gave  them,  so  they  said,  "  a  queer  feel 
ing."  As  they  stood  in  the  quiet  gray  street,  looking  up 
and  down,  and  taking  in  the  significance  of  the  fact,  one 
could  almost  visibly  see  their  minds  turning  away  from 
the  text-book  idea  of  the  Past  as  an  unreal,  sparsely 
settled  period  with  violent  historical  characters  in  doublet 
and  ruff  or  chain  mail  thrusting  broadswords  into  one  an- 


2   -V. :  :/:  :;:\HQ:ME;  FJ.RES  IN  FRANCE 

other  or  signing  treaties  which  condemned  all  succeeding 
college  students  to  a  new  feat  of  memory;  you  could 
almost  see  their  brilliant,  shadowless,  New  World  youth 
deepened  and  sobered  by  a  momentary  perception  of  the 
Past  as  a  very  long  and  startlingly  real  phenomenon, 
full,  scaringly  full  of  real  people,  entirely  like  ourselves, 
going  about  the  business  of  getting  born,  being  married 
and  dying,  with  as  little  conscious  regard  as  we  for 
historical  movements  and  tendencies.  They  were  never 
done  marveling  that  the  sun  should  have  fallen  across 
Crouy  streets  at  the  same  angle  before  Columbus  discov 
ered  America  as  to-day;  that  at  the  time  of  the  French 
Revolution  just  as  now,  the  big  boys  and  sturdy  men 
of  Crouy  should  have  left  the  same  fields  which  now  lie 
golden  in  the  sun  and  have  gone  out  to  repel  the  invader; 
that  people  looked  up  from  drawing  water  at  the  same 
fountain  which  now  sparkles  under  the  sycamore  trees 
and  saw  Catherine  de  Medici  pass  on  her  way  north  as 
now  they  see  the  gray  American  Ambulance  rattle 
by.  ..."  And  I  bet  it  wras  over  these  same  cussed  hard 
heads  ! "  cried  the  boy  from  Ohio,  trying  vainly  to  ease 
his  car  over  the  knobby  paving-stones. 

"  No,  oh  no,"  answered  the  town  notary  reasonably. 
"  The  streets  of  Crouy  were  paved  in  comparatively  re 
cent  times,  not  earlier  than  1620." 

"  Oh,  the  Pilgrim  Fathers!  "  cried  the  boy  from  Con 
necticut. 

"And  nothing  ever  happened  here  all  that  time?" 
queried  the  boy  from  California  incredulously. 


NOTES  FROM  A  FRENCH  VILLAGE  3 

"  Nothing,"  said  the  notary,  "  except  a  great  deal  of 
human  life." 

"  Gee!  what  a  lot  o'  that! "  murmured  the  thoughtful 
boy  from  Virginia,  his  eyes  widening  imaginatively. 

After  the  fact  that  it  had  been  there  so  long,  they  were 
astonished  by  the  fact  that  it  was  there  at  all,  existing, 
as  far  as  they  could  see,  with  no  visible  means  of  sup 
port  beyond  a  casual  sawmill  or  two.  "  How  do  all 
these  people  earn  their  living?"  they  always  asked,  put 
ting  the  question  in  the  same  breath  with  the  other  in 
evitable  one :  "  Where  do  the  people  live  who  care  for 
all  this  splendid  farming  country  ?  We  see  them  working 
in  the  fields,  these  superb  wheat-fields,  or  harvesting  the 
oats,  but  you  can  drive  your  car  for  mile  after  mile  and 
never  see  a  human  habitation.  We  thought  Europe  was 
a  thickly  populated  place !  " 

Of  course  you  know  the  obvious  answer.  The  people 
who  till  the  fields  all  live  in  the  villages.  If  you  inhabit 
such  a  cettlement  you  hear  every  morning,  very,  very 
early,  the  slow,  heavy  tread  of  the  big  farm-horses  and 
the  rumble  of  the  huge  two- wheeled  carts  going  out  to 
work,  and  one  of  the  picturesque  sights  of  the  sunset  hour 
is  the  procession  of  the  powerful  Percherons,  their  driv 
ers  sitting  sideways  on  their  broad  backs,  plodding  into 
the  village,  both  horses  and  farmers  with  an  inimitable 
air  of  leisurely  philosophy;  of  having  done  a  good  day's 
work  and  letting  it  go  at  that;  of  attempting  no  last 
nervous  whack  at  the  accumulated  pile  of  things  to  be 
done  which  always  lies  before  every  one;  with  an  unem- 


4  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

bittered  acceptance  of  the  facts  that  there  are  but 
twenty- four  hours  in  every  day  and  that  it  is  good  to 
spend  part  of  them  eating  savory  hot  soup  with  one's 
family.  According  to  temperament,  this  appearance, 
only  possible,  apparently,  when  you  have  lived  a  thou 
sand  years  in  the  same  place,  enormously  reposes  or  enor 
mously  exasperates  the  American  observer. 

You  do  not  see  the  cows  going  out  to  pasture,  or  com 
ing  back  at  night  through  the  village  streets,  because 
those  farmers  who  have  a  dairy  live  on  the  outskirts 
of  the  town,  with  their  big  square  courtyards  adjacent 
to  the  fields.  The  biggest  farmhouse  of  this  sort  in 
Crouy  is  lodged  in  the  remnants  of  the  medieval  castle 
of  the  old  seigneurs  (symbol  of  modern  France!)  where 
at  night  the  cows  ramble  in  peaceably  through  the  old 
gate  where  once  the  portcullis  hung,  and  stand  chewing 
their  cud  about  the  great  courtyards  whence  marauding 
knights  in  armor  once  clattered  out  to  rob. 

Of  course  this  arrangement  whereby  country  folk  all 
live  in  villages  turns  inside  out  and  upside  down  most  of 
those  conditions  which  seem  to  us  inevitable  accompani 
ments  of  country  life;  for  instance,  the  isolation  and 
loneliness  of  the  women  and  children.  There  is  no  iso 
lation  possible  here,  when,  to  shake  hands  with  the 
woman  of  the  next  farm,  you  have  only  to  lean  out  of 
your  front  window  and  have  her  lean  out  of  hers,  when 
your  children  go  to  get  water  from  the  fountain  along 
with  all  the  other  children  of  the  region,  when  you  are 
less  than  five  minutes'  walk  from  church  and  the  grocery- 


NOTES  FROM  A  FRENCH  VILLAGE  5 

store,  when  your  children  can  wait  till  the  school-bell  is 
ringing  before  snatching  up  their  books  to  go  to 
school. 

You  do  not  have  to  wait  for  your  mail  till  some  one 
can  go  to  town  or  till  the  R.  F.  D.  man  brings  it  around 
six  hours  after  it  has  arrived  in  town.  The  village  mail- 
carrier  brings  it  to  you  directly  it  arrives,  just  as  though 
you  lived  in  a  city.  You  do  not  have  to  wait  for  your 
community  news  till  it  niters  slowly  to  your  remote  door 
by  the  inaccurate  medium  of  the  irresponsible  grocery- 
boy.  The  moment  anything  of  common  interest  happens, 
the  town  crier  walks  up  your  street.  At  the  sound  of 
his  announcing  drum  or  bell  you  drop  your  work,  stick 
your  head  out  of  your  door,  and  hear  at  once,  hot  off  the 
griddle,  as  soon  as  any  one,  that  there  will  be  an  auction 
of  cows  at  the  Brissons  on  Saturday  next,  that  poor  sick 
old  Madame  Mantier  has  at  last  passed  away,  or  that 
school  reopens  a  week  from  Monday  and  all  children 
must  be  ready  to  go.  And  if  one  of  the  children  breaks 
his  arm,  or  if  a  horse  has  the  colic,  or  your  chimney  gets 
on  fire,  you  do  not  suffer  the  anguished  isolation  of 
American  country  life.  The  whole  town  swarms  in  to 
help  you,  in  a  twinkling  of  an  eye.  In  fact,  for  my  per 
sonal  taste,  I  must  confess  that  the  whole  town  seemed 
only  too  ready  to  swarm  in,  on  any  friendly  pretext  at 
all.  But  then,  I  have  back  of  me  many  generations  of 
solitary-minded  farmer  ancestors,  living  sternly  and 
grimly  to  themselves,  and  not  a  thousand  years  of  really 
sociable  community  life. 


6  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

"  But  if  they  are  country-people  who  live  in  these  dry- 
looking  villages,"  asked  our  American  Ambulance  boys, 
"  what  makes  them  huddle  up  so  close  together  and  run 
the  houses  into  one  long  wall  of  buildings  that  look  like 
tenement-houses  ?  Why  don't  they  have  nice  front  yards 
like  ours,  with  grass  and  flowers,  and  people  sitting  on 
the  front  porch,  enjoying  life?  You  can  go  through 
village  after  village  here  and  never  see  a  thing  but  those 
ugly,  stony  streets  and  long,  high,  stone  walls,  and 
bare,  stony  houses,  and  never  a  soul  but  maybe  an  old 
woman  with  a  gunny  sack  on  her  back,  or  a  couple  of 
kids  lugging  water  in  a  pail." 

The  best  answer  to  that  was  to  open  the  door  into 
our  own  bare,  stone  house,  which,  like  all  the  others  on 
the  street,  presented  to  the  public  eye  an  unalluring, 
long,  gray-white,  none-too-clean  plastered  wall,  broken 
by  square  windows  designed  for  utility  only.  The  big 
door  opening  showed  a  stone-paved  corridor  leading 
straight  to  what  seemed  at  first  glance  an  earthly  Paradise 
of  green;  an  old,  old  garden  with  superb  nut-trees,  great 
flowering  bushes,  a  bit  of  grass,  golden  graveled  paths, 
and  high  old  gray  walls  with  grapevines  and  fruit-trees 
carefully  trained  against  them. 

Our  American  visitor  stared  about  him  with  dazzled 
eyes.  "  What  a  heavenly  place !  But  who  ever  would 
have  guessed  such  a  garden  was  in  Crouy ! " 

"  Oh,  but  this  is  not  one  of  the  really  good  gardens 
of  the  town,"  we  assured  him.  "  This  is  a  poor  old  neg 
lected  one  compared  with  those  all  around  us." 


NOTES  FROM  A  FRENCH  VILLAGE  7 

"  But  where  are  they  ? "  asked  our  American  incredu 
lously,  his  vision  cut  off  by  the  ten-foot  wall. 

At  this  we  invited  him  upstairs  to  a  lofty  window  at 
the  back  of  the  house,  leaning  from  which  he  had  a 
totally  new  view  of  the  town  whose  arid  gray  streets  he 
had  traversed  so  many  times.  Back  of  every  one  of 
these  gray-white,  monotonously  aligned  plastered  houses 
stretched  a  garden,  often  a  very  large  one,  always  a 
jewel,  gleaming,  burnished,  and  ordered,  with  high  old 
trees  near  the  house,  and  flowers  and  vines;  and,  back 
of  this  pleasure  spot,  a  great  fertile  stretch  of  well- 
kept  vegetables  and  fruit.  He  stared  long,  our  Amer 
ican,  reconstructing  his  ideas  with  racial  rapidity. 
On  withdrawing  his  head  his  first  comment  was,  usu 
ally: 

"  But  for  the  Lord's  sake,  how  ever  do  they  get  the 
money  to  pay  for  building  all  those  miles  of  huge  stone 
walls?  It  must  cost  every  family  a  fortune." 

Upon  learning  that  those  walls  had  stood  exactly  there 
in  those  very  lines  for  hundreds  of  years,  requiring  only 
to  be  periodically  kept  in  repair,  he  sank  into  another 
momentary  reconstructive  meditation. 

Then  came  the  inevitable  American  challenge,  the 
brave  new  note  from  the  New  World  which  I  always 
rejoiced  to  hear: 

"  But  what's  the  point  of  shutting  yourself  up  that 
way  from  your  neighbors  and  making  such  a  secret  of 
your  lovely  garden  that  nobody  gets  any  good  of  it  but 
yourself  ?  Why  not  open  up  and  let  everybody  who  goes 


8  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

by  take  pleasure  in  your  flowers  and  your  lawn  and  see 
the  kids  playing  and  hear  them  laughing?  " 

Of  course  I  always  went  duly  through  the  orthodox 
historical  and  social  explanations.  I  pointed  out  that  it 
was  only  in  comparatively  late  times — only  since  that 
very  recent  event  the  French  Revolution  or  the  begin 
ning  of  our  life  as  a  nation — that  isolated  houses  in  the 
fields  would  have  been  safe;  that  up  to  that  time  people 
were  obliged  to  huddle  together  inside  the  walls  of  a 
town  at  night  as  a  safeguard  against  having  their  throats 
cut;  that  an  age-old  habit  of  apprehension  and  precaution 
leaves  ineradicable  marks  on  life;  and  that  it  still  seems 
entirely  natural  for  French  people  to  conceal  their  gar 
dens  behind  ten-foot  stone  walls  with  broken  bottles  on 
top,  although  for  generations  the  community  life  has 
been  as  peaceful  as  that  of  any  drowsy  New  England 
village.  But,  having  given  this  academic  explanation,  I 
went  on  to  hazard  a  guess  that  age-old  habits  of  fear 
leave  behind  them  more  than  material  marks,  like  stone 
walls  and  broken  bottles.  They  shape  and  form  human 
minds  into  tastes  and  preferences  and  prejudices,  the  un- 
courageous  origin  of  which  the  owners  of  the  minds 
are  far  from  divining. 

"  You  know,"  I  said  to  our  boy  from  home,  "  they 
can't  understand  our  open  villages  with  no  fences  or 
walls,  with  everybody's  flowers  open  to  everybody's  view, 
with  our  pretty  girls  showing  their  fresh  summer  dresses 
and  bright,  sweet  faces  to  the  chance  passerby  as  well  as 
to  the  selected  few  who  have  the  countersign  to  enter. 


NOTES  FROM  A  FRENCH  VILLAGE  9 

,They  can't  understand  it,  and  they  don't  try  to,  for  they 
don't  like  it.  They  don't  like  our  isolated  houses.  They, 
like  all  Europeans,  apparently  like  the  feeling  of  having 
neighbors  near  so  that  they  can  enjoy  shutting  them  out. 
They  say  they  like  the  feeling  of  '  being  all  to  them 
selves  ' ;  they  have  a  passion  for  *  privacy '  which  often 
seems  to  mean  keeping  desirable  things  away  from  other 
people ;  they  can't  see  how  we  endure  the  '  staring  eyes 
of  strangers/ ' 

At  this  point  I  was  usually  interrupted  by  the  boy  from 
home  who  cried  out  hotly: 

"  Well,  I  hope  we  won't  ever  get  so  afraid  of  people 
we  haven't  been  introduced  to !  I  guess  we  can  stand  it, 
not  being  so  darned  private  as  all  that !  I  don't  see  that 
you  need  take  any  less  satisfaction  in  a  rosebush  because 
it's  given  pleasure  to  a  lot  of  work-people  going  by  in  the 
morning ! " 

On  which  proposition  we  always  cordially  shook  hands. 

"  And  yet,  d'you  know,"  added  the  boy  from  home,  a 
little  wistfully,  looking  down  into  the  green,  secluded 
peace  of  the  walled-in  garden,  "  there  must  be  some 
thing  kind  o'  nice  about  the  quiet  of  it,  being  able  to  do 
as  you  please  without  everybody  looking  at  you.  It 
sort  of  makes  our  front  yards  seem  like  a  public  park, 
instead  of  a  home,  doesn't  it?  " 

"  Yes,"  I  said  sadly,  "  it  does,  a  little." 

Oh,  Europe,  Europe!  seductive  old  Europe,  ever  .up 
to  thine  old  game  of  corrupting  the  fresh  candor  of 
invading  barbarians! 


io  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

"  But,  anyhow,"  ended  the  boy  from  home  bravely, 
"  I  don't  care.  I  think  our  way  is  lots  the  nicest  .  .  ., 
for  everybody!" 

Dear  boy  from  home! 

Then  we  went  downstairs  and  visited  our  modest  es 
tablishment,  typical  in  a  small  way  of  all  those  about 
us,  and  although  made  up  of  the  same  essential  features 
as  those  of  a  small  American  town  home,  differing  in  a 
thousand  ways. 

"  Why,  there  are  apples  on  this  hedge,  real  apples ! " 
said  the  American.  "  Who  ever  heard  of  apples  on  a 
little  low  hedge  plant?" 

"  Those  aren't  hedge  plants,"  we  told  him.  "  Those 
are  real  apple-trees,  trained  to  grow  low,  cut  back  year 
after  year,  pruned,  watched,  nipped,  fertilized,  shaped, 
into  something  quite  different  from  what  they  meant 
to  be.  They  produce  a  tenth,  a  twentieth  part  of  what 
Would  grow  if  the  tree  were  left  to  itself,  but  what 
golden  apples  of  Hesperides  they  are!  The  pears  are 
like  that,  too.  Here  is  a  pear-tree  older  than  I,  and  not 
so  tall,  which  bears  perhaps  a  dozen  pears,  but  what 
pears!  And  you  see,  too,  when  the  trees  are  kept  small, 
you  can  have  ever  so  many  more  in  the  same  space. 
They  don't  shade  your  vegetables,  either.  See  those 
beans  growing  up  right  to  the  base  of  the  trees." 

The  chicken-yard  was  comforting  to  our  visitors  be 
cause  it  was  like  any  chicken-yard;  if  anything,  not  so 
well  kept  or  so  well  organized  as  an  American  one.  But 
beyond  them  is  a  row  of  twelve  well-constructed  brick 


NOTES  FROM  A  FRENCH  VILLAGE  n 

rabbit-hutches  with  carefully  made  lattice  gates  and 
cement  floors,  before  which  visitors  always  stopped  to 
gaze  at  the  endlessly  twitching  pink  noses  and  vacuous 
faces  of  the  little  beasts.  I  hastened  to  explain  that  they 
were  not  at  all  for  the  children  to  play  with,  but  that 
they  form  a  serious  part  of  the  activities  of  every  coun 
try  family  in  the  region,  supplying  for  many  people 
the  only  meat  they  ever  eat  beyond  the  very  occasional 
fowl  in  the  pot  for  a  fete-day.  They  take  the  place,  as 
far  as  I  could  see,  of  the  American  farm  family's  hog, 
and  are  to  my  mind  a  great  improvement  on  him.  Their 
flesh  is  much  better  food  than  the  hog's,  and  since  the 
animal  is  so  small  and  so  prolific,  he  provides  a  steady 
succession  all  the  year  round  of  fresh  meat,  palatable  and 
savory,  not  smoked  and  salted  into  indigestibility  like 
most  of  our  country  pork.  In  addition,  he  costs  prac 
tically  nothing  to  raise.  This  is,  under  the  usual  condi 
tions  of  the  French  countryside,  almost  literally  true. 
They  are  given  those  scraps  from  the  kitchen  and  garden 
which  hens  will  not  touch,  the  potato  and  vegetable  par 
ings,  the  carrot-tops,  the  pea-vines  after  they  have 
stopped  bearing,  the  outer  leaves  of  the  cabbages, 
and,  above  all,  herbage  of  all  sorts  which  otherwise  would 
be  lost.  Every  afternoon,  the  old  women  of  the  town, 
armed  with  gunny  sacks  and  sickles,  go  out  for  an  hour 
or  so  of  fresh  air  and  exercise.  The  phrase  is  that  they 
va  d  I'herbe  (go  for  the  grass).  It  is  often  a  lively  ex 
pedition,  with  the  children  skipping  and  shouting  beside 
,their  grandmother,  or  one  of  the  bigger  boys  pushing 


12  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

the  wheelbarrow,  cherished  and  indispensable  accessory 
of  French  country  life.  They  take  what  with  us  would  be 
a  "  walk  in  the  country,"  and  as  they  pass  they  levy  toll 
on  every  sod  beside  the  road,  or  in  a  corner  of  a  wall; 
on  the  fresh  green  leaves  and  twigs  of  neglected  thickets; 
on  brambles  and  weeds — rabbits  adore  weeds! — on  un 
derbrush  and  vines.  Since  seeing  these  patient,  ruddy, 
vigorous,  white-capped  old  women  at  their  work  I  have 
made  another  guess  at  the  cause  of  the  miraculously  neat 
and  ordered  aspect  of  French  landscapes.  It  is  an  effect 
not  wholly  due  to  the  esthetic  sense  of  the  nation.  To 
ward  twilight,  the  procession  of  old  women  and  chil 
dren,  red-cheeked  and  hungry,  turns  back  to  the  village, 
with  wheelbarrows  loaded  and  sacks  bursting  with  food 
which  otherwise  would  have  served  no  human  purpose. 
No  need  to  give  the  rabbit,  as  we  do  the  hog,  expensive 
golden  corn,  fit  for  our  own  food,  and  which  takes  the 
heart  out  of  the  soil  which  produces  it.  The  rabbit  lives, 
and  lives  well,  on  the  unconsidered  and  unmissed  crumbs 
from  Mother  Nature's  table. 

The  rabbit-hutches  being  near  the  kitchen,  we  usually 
went  next  into  that  red-and-white-tiled  room,  with  the 
tiny  coal-range  (concession  to  the  twentieth  century) 
with  the  immense  open  hearth  (heritage  of  the  past)  and 
the  portable  charcoal-stove,  primitive,  universal  imple 
ment. 

"  But  you  can't  bake  your  bread  in  such  a  play-stove 
as  that,"  commented  the  American. 

And  with  that  we  were  launched  into  a  new  phase  of 


NOTES  FROM  A  FRENCH  VILLAGE          13 

Crouy  life,  the  close-knit  communal  organization  of  a 
French  settlement.  Since  all  these  country  people  live 
side  by  side,  they  discovered  long  ago  that  there  is  no 
need  to  duplicate,  over  and  over,  in  each  house,  labors 
which  are  better  done  in  centralized  activity.  Instead  of 
four  hundred  cook-stoves  being  heated  to  the  baking- 
point,  with  a  vast  waste  of  fuel  and  effort,  one  big  fire  in 
the  village  boulangerie  bakes  the  bread  for  all  the  com 
munity.  These  French  country  women  no  more  bake 
their  own  bread  than  they  make  their  own  shoes.  In  fact, 
if  they  tried  to  they  could  not  produce  anything  half  so 
appetizing  and  nourishing  as  the  crusty,  well-baked 
loaves  turned  out  by  that  expert  specialist,  the  village 
bakeress;  and  they  buy  those  loaves  for  less  than  it 
would  cost  to  produc  i  them  in  each  kitchen. 

In  addition  to  the  boulangerie  where  you  buy  your 
bread,  there  is  in  Crouy  (and  in  all  other  French  towns 
of  that  size)  another  shop  kept  by  a  specially  good  cook 
among  the  housewives,  where  you  can  always  buy  cer 
tain  cooked  foods  \vhich  are  hard  to  prepare  at  home 
in  small  quantities.  Ham,  for  instance.  In  American 
towns  too  small  to  have  a  delicatessen  shop,  how  many  of 
us  quail  before  the  hours  of  continuous  heat  needed  to 
boil  a  ham,  and  the  still  more  formidable  enterprise  of 
getting  it  all  eaten  up  afterward  without  a  too  dreary 
monotony !  I  have  known  American  villages  where  peo 
ple  said  the  real  reason  for  church  suppers  was  that  they 
might  taste  boiled  ham  once  in  a  while.  In  Crouy,  back 
ward,  primitive,  drainageless  community  that  it  is,  they 


14  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

cater  to  the  prime  necessity  of  variety  in  diet  with  a 
competence  like  that  with  which  the  problem  of  good 
bread  is  solved  all  over  France.  Every  Wednesday  morn 
ing  you  know  that  Madame  Beaugard  has  a  ham  freshly 
boiled.  You  may  buy  one  slice,  just  enough  to  garnish  a 
cold  salad,  or  ten  slices  to  serve  in  a  hot  sauce  for  dinner. 
On  Saturdays  she  has  a  big  roast  of  beef,  hot  and  smok 
ing  out  of  her  oven  at  a  quarter  of  twelve,  and  a  family 
or  two  may  thus  enjoy  this  luxury  without  paying  the 
usual  Anglo-Saxon  penalty  of  eating  cold  or  hashed  beef 
for  many  days  thereafter.  On  another  day  she  has  beans, 
the  dry  beans  which  are  such  a  bother  to  prepare  in  small 
quantities  and  such  an  admirable  and  savory  food.  She 
is  the  village  fruit-seller,  and  wher?  you  go  to  buy  your 
fruit  in  her  little  shop,  which  is  r  othing  more  or  less 
than  her  front  parlor  transformed,  you  are  sure  to  find 
something  else  appetizing  and  tempting.  Note  that  this 
regular  service  not  only  adds  greatly  to  the  variety  and 
tastefulness  of  the  diet  of  the  village,  but  enables  Ma 
dame  Beaugard  to  earn  her  living  more  amply. 

In  another  big  operation  of  housekeeping  the  simplest 
French  country  community  puts  its  resources  together, 
instead  of  scattering  them.  On  wash  days  there  is  no 
arduous  lifting  and  emptying  out  of  water,  no  penetrat 
ing  odor  of  soapsuds  throughout  all  the  house,  no  waste 
of  fuel  under  hundreds  of  individual  wash-boilers,  no 
solitary  drudging  over  the  washtubs.  The  French  coun 
try  housekeeper  who  does  her  own  washing  brings  around 
to  the  street  door  her  faithful  steed,  the  wheelbarrow, 


NOTES  FROM  A  FRENCH  VILLAGE  15 

and  loads  it  up;  first  the  big  galvanized  boiler  full  of 
soiled  clothes,  then  a  wooden  box  open  at  one  side,  filled 
with  clean  straw,  then  the  soap,  a  flat,  short-handled 
wooden  paddle,  and  a  stiff  scrubbing-brush.  Leaving  the 
children  not  yet  at  school  in  the  charge  of  a  neighbor — 
for  whom  she  will  perform  the  same  service  another  day 
of  the  week — her  head  done  up  in  a  kerchief,  her  skirts 
kilted  high  to  let  her  step  free,  she  sets  off  down  the 
road  for  the  lavoir.  I  use  the  French  word  because  the 
institution  does  not  exist  in  English. 

This  is  usually  a  low  stone  building,  with  an  open  place 
in  the  roof,  either  covered  with  glass  or  open  to  the  air. 
In  the  center  is  a  big  pool  of  water,  constantly  renewed, 
which  gushes  in  clean  and  eddies  out  soapy,  carrying 
with  it  the  impurities  of  the  village  linen.  Here  our 
housewife  finds  an  assortment  of  her  friends  and  neigh 
bors,  and  here  she  kneels  in  the  open  air,  in  her  straw- 
filled  box,  and  soaps,  and  beats,  and  rinses,  and  scrubs 
at  the  spots  with  her  scrubbing-brush  (they  never  use  a 
rubbing-board),  and  at  the  same  time  hears  all  the  talk 
of  the  town,  gets  whatever  news  from  the  outer  worl3 
is  going  the  rounds,  jokes  and  scolds,  sympathizes  and 
laughs,  sorrows  with  and  quarrels  with  her  neighbors,— 
gets,  in  short,  the  same  refreshing  and  entire  change 
from  the  inevitable  monotony  of  the  home  routine  which 
an  American  housewife  of  a  more  prosperous  class  gets 
in  her  club  meeting,  and  which  the  American  housewife 
of  the  same  class  gets,  alas!  almost  never. 

And,  yes,  the  clothes  are  clean !    I  know  it  runs  coun- 


1 6  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

ter  to  all  our  fixed  ideas  and  what  we  are  taught  in  do 
mestic-science  classes.  I  don't  pretend  to  explain  it  but 
the  fact  remains  that  clothes  soaped  and  beaten  and 
rinsed  in  cold  water,  boiled  in  a  boiler  over  the  open  fire 
and  dried  on  the  grass,  are  of  the  most  dazzling  white 
ness.  It  is  just  another  wholesome  reminder  that  there 
are  all  kinds  of  ways  to  kill  a  cat,  and  that  our  own, 
natural  and  inevitable  as  it  seems  to  us,  may  not  even  be 
the  most  orthodox. 

Another  such  reminder  is  the  fashion  in  which  they 
manage  baths  in  Crouy.  There  are  not  (you  can  hear, 
can't  you,  the  supercilious  Anglo-Saxon  tourist  saying, 
"  Of  course  there  are  not3'?)  any  bathrooms  in  the 
houses,  nor  in  the  one  little  inn.  And  yet  the  people 
take  plenty  of  baths,  and  in  big  porcelain  bathtubs  too, 
bigger  and  deeper  and  fuller  of  hot  water  than  those  we 
have  in  our  houses. 

Among  the  many  curious  little  industries  of  the  place 
is  the  etablissement  des  bains.  As  you  go  down  the 
main  street  of  a  morning  you  stop  in  and  fill  up  a  little 
printed  card  stating  that  you  wish  a  hot  (or  cold)  plain 
(or  perfumed  or  sulphur  or  starch  or  what  not)  bath,  at 
such  and  such  an  hour.  The  little  old  woman  in  charge 
(note  that  this  is  another  way  for  a  little  old  woman 
to  earn  an  honest  living)  notes  your  hour,  and  stokes 
up  her  stove  according  to  the  schedule  of  the  day.  When 
you  arrive  you  are  shown  into  an  immaculately  clean  tiled 
bathroom,  with  an  enormous  tub,  lined  with  a  clean  sheet 
(it  has  been  definitely  decided  by  doctors  that  this  pre- 


NOTES  FROM  A  FRENCH  VILLAGE  17 

caution  obviates  any  possibility  of  contagion)  and  filled 
with  clear,  sparkling  hot  water.  You  can  rent  your 
towels  for  two  cents  apiece,  and  buy  a  bit  of  soap  for 
three  cents,  or  you  may  bring  them  from  home,  if  you 
prefer.  Of  course,  being  unused  to  this  particular  way 
of  killing  the  cat,  you  feel  rather  foolish  and  queer 
to  be  taking  a  bath  in  a  community  bathtub  instead  of 
in  your  own.  But  the  bath  is  a  fine  one;  with  a  cold 
rub-down  at  the  end,  there  is  no  danger  of  taking  cold; 
and  as  you  dress,  glowing  and  refreshed,  you  cannot  put 
out  of  your  mind  some  such  colloquy  as  this: 

"  Yes,  of  course  I  prefer  a  bathtub  in  my  own  house. 
Everybody  would.  But  suppose  I  haven't  money  enough 
to  have  one  ?  At  home,  in  a  town  like  this,  you  can  only 
get  a  bath,  or  give  it  to  your  children,  if  you  have  capital 
enough  to  buy,  install,  and  keep  up  a  bathroom  of  your 
own.  Here  you  can  have  an  even  better  one,  any  time 
you  can  spare  fifteen  cents  in  cash.  Which  method  pro 
duces  the  bigger  area  of  clean  skin  in  a  given  com 
munity?  " 

You  usually  end  your  colloquy  by  quoting  to  yourself, 
laughingly,  the  grandly  American-minded  remark  of  the 
boy  from  Illinois,  whose  reaction  to  the  various  eye- 
openers  about  him  was  thus  formulated: 

"  Do  you  know,  the  thing  we  want  to  do  at  home  is  to 
keep  all  the  good  ways  of  doing  this  we've  got  already," 
and  then  add  all  the  French  ones  too." 

We  laughed  over  the  youthful  self-confidence  of 
that  ambition,  but,  as  the  boy  from  Illinois  would 


1 8  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

say,  "  Honestly,  do  you  know,  there  is  something  in  it." 

In  one  of  the  few  large,  handsome  houses  in  Crouy 
there  is  something  else  I  wish  we  might  import  into 
America.  Very  simply,  with  no  brass  band  of  a  formal 
organization,  secretaries,  or  reports,  the  younger  girls  of 
the  town  are  brought  together  to  learn  how  to  sew  and 
cook  and  keep  their  household  accounts.  The  splendid 
park  which  looks  so  lordly  with  its  noble  trees  is  only 
the  playground  for  the  little  girls  in  gingham  aprons  in 
the  intervals  of  their  study;  and  the  fine,  high-ceilinged, 
spacious  old  salon,  a  veritable  Henry  James  room,  is  em 
ployed  in  anything  but  a  Henry  James  manner  as  the 
workroom  where  all  the  children  from  the  poorer  houses 
round  about  sit  in  the  sunshine,  setting  beautiful  fine 
stitches  and  chattering  like  magpies. 

A  large  room  at  the  side  has  been  fitted  up — oh,  so 
long  before  domestic  science  "  struck  "  America — as  a 
kitchen,  and  here  the  little  girls  daily  prepare  their  own 
luncheons,  after  having,  turn  by  turn,  done  the  marketing 
and  made  up  their  small  acounts  under  the  supervision 
of  an  expert  teacher.  Their  rosy  cheeks  and  bright  eyes 
testify  to  the  good  training  which  their  own  mothers  re 
ceived  in  this  very  room,  in  these  very  essentials  of  life. 

The  gracious,  gray-haired  owner  of  the  beautiful  home 
has  always  been  so  busy  with  her  school  and  workroom 
that  she  almost  never  runs  into  Paris,  although  she  is  not 
more  than  a  couple  of  hours  away. 

"  I've  only  been  there  five  or  six  times  in  my  life,"  she 
says,  shaking  her  head  in  mocking  contrition,  and  turning 


NOTES  FROM  A  FRENCH  VILLAGE  19 

superb  old  rings  around  on  her  soft,  wrinkled  hands. 
She  adds,  with  a  pretty  whimsical  smile :  "  To  tell  the 
truth,  it  bores  me  awfully  when  I  do  go.  I  have  so  much 
to  see  to  here,  that  I'm  uneasy  to  be  away." 

You  are  to  remember  that  this  has  been  going  on  for 
at  least  two  generations.  The  quiet-eyed  chatelaine  of 
the  manor  mentions,  in  passing,  that  she  is  but  continuing 
the  work  of  her  aunt  who  lived  there  before  her,  and 
who  for  fifty  years  gave  all  her  life  and  property  for  her 
neighbors'  children  in  quite  the  same  way.  When  you 
leave  you  try  to  murmur  something  about  what  two  such 
lives  must  have  meant  to  the  community,  but  this  entirely 
unmodern,  unradical,  unread  provincial  Frenchwoman 
cuts  you  short  by  saying  in  a  matter-of-fact  tone,  with 
the  most  transparent  simplicity  of  manner : 

"  Oh,  but  of  course  property  is  only  a  trust,  after  all, 
isn't  it?" 

Will  some  one  please  tell  me  what  are  the  appropriate 
sentiments  for  good  Socialists  to  feel  about  such  people  ? 

There  is  another  ouvroir  (sewing-room)  in  Crouy  of 
another  sort,  where  the  older  girls,  instead  of  being 
forced  to  go  away  from  home,  as  in  most  American  vil 
lages,  to  work  in  factories  or  shops,  may  earn  an  excel 
lent  living  doing  expert  embroidery  or  fine  sewing.  They 
are  well  paid,  and  the  enterprise  is  successful  commer 
cially  because  the  long-headed  philanthropist  at  the  head 
of  the  organization  manages  to  sell  direct  to  consumers 
— as  will  always  be  done  as  a  matter-of-course  in  the 
twenty-first  century — instead  of  passing  the  product 


20  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

through  the  acquisitive  hands  of  many  middlemen.  But 
there  is  so  much  to  report  in  detail  about  this  wholly  ad- 
mirable  and  modern  undertaking  that  I  must  make  an 
other  story  of  it.  It  is  really  curious  how  often,  in  this 
little,  backward,  drainageless  French  village,  an  Ameri 
can  is  brought  to  a  halt,  a  long,  scrutinizing  inspection, 
and  much  profitable  meditation. 

So  far  you  have  seen  Crouy  as  it  was  before  the  war, 
and  as  it  is  now  in  the  brief  intervals  between  the  depar 
ture  of  a  regiment  going  back  to  the  front  and  the 
arrival  of  another  with  the  trench  mud  still  on  its  boots. 
You  have  seen  the  long,  gray,  stony  street  filled  morning 
and  evening  with  horses  and  laborers  going  out  to  work 
or  returning,  and  in  the  meantime  dozing  somnolent  in 
the  sun,  with  only  a  cat  or  dog  to  cross  it,  an  old  woman 
going  out  for  the  grass,  or  a  long,  gray  American  Ford 
Ambulance  banging  along  over  the  paving,  the  square- 
jawed,  clean-shaven  boy  from  the  States  zigzagging  des 
perately  with  the  vain  idea  that  the  other  side  of  the 
street  cannot  be  so  rough  as  the  one  he  is  on.  You  have 
seen  the  big  open  square,  sleeping  under  the  airy  shadow 
of  the  great  sycamores,  only  the  occasional  chatter  of 
children  drawing  water  at  the  fountain  breaking  the 
silence.  You  have  seen  the  beautiful  old  church,  echo 
ing  and  empty  save  for  an  old,  poor  man,  his  ax  or  his 
spade  beside  him,  as  he  kneels  for  a  moment  to  pray  for 
his  grandsons  at  the  front;  or  for  a  woman  in  black, 
rigid  and  silent  before  a  shrine,  at  whose  white  face  you 


NOTES  FROM  A  FRENCH  VILLAGE          21 

dare  not  glance  as  you  pass.  You  have  seen  the  plain, 
bare  walls  of  the  old  houses,  turning  an  almost  blank 
face  to  the  street,  with  closely  shuttered  or  thickly  cur 
tained  windows. 

But  one  morning,  very  early,  before  you  are  dressed, 
you  hear  suddenly,  close  at  hand,  that  clear,  ringing  chal 
lenge  of  the  bugle  which  bids  all  human  hearts  to  rise  and 
triumph,  and  the  vehement  whirring  rhythm  of  the 
drums,  like  a  violent  new  pulse  beating  in  your  own  body. 
The  house  begins  to  shake  as  though  with  thunder,  not 
the  far-off  roar  of  the  great  cannon  of  the  horizon  which 
you  hear  every  day,  but  a  definite  vibration  of  the  earth 
under  your  feet.  You  rush  to  your  street  window,  throw 
open  the  shutters,  and,  leaning  from  the  sill,  see  that 
all  Crouy  is  leaning  with  you  and  looking  up  the  street. 

There,  at  the  turn,  where  the  road  leaves  the  yellow 
wheat-fields  to  enter  the  village,  the  flag  is  coming,  the 
torn,  ragged,  dingy,  sacred  tricolor.  Back  of  it  the  trum 
pets,  gleaming  in  the  sun,  proclaim  its  honor.  They  are 
here,  the  poilus,  advancing  with  their  quick,  swinging 
step,  so  bravely  light  for  all  the  cruel  heavy  sacks  on 
their  backs  and  the  rBes  on  their  shoulders.  Their  four- 
ranked  file  fills  our  street  from  side  to  side,  as  their 
trumpets  fill  our  ears,  as  the  fatigue  and  courage  of  their 
faces  fill  our  hearts.  They  are  here,  the  splendid,  splen 
did  soldiers  who  are  the  French  poilus.  Everybody's 
brother,  cousin,  husband,  friend,  son,  is  there. 

All  Crouy  leans  from  its  windows  to  welcome  them 
back  from  death — one  more  respite.  They  glance  up 


22  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

at  the  windows  as  they  pass;  the  younger  ones  smile  at 
the  girls'  faces;  the  older  ones,  fathers  certainly,  look 
wistfully  at  the  children's  bright  heads.  There  are  cer 
tain  ones  who  look  at  nothing,  staring  straight  ahead  at 
immaterial  sights  which  will  not  leave  their  eyes. 

One  detachment  has  passed;  the  rumbling  has  increased 
till  your  windows  shake  as  though  in  an  earthquake.  The 
camions  and  guns  are  going  by,  an  endless  defile  of  mon 
ster  trucks,  ending  with  the  rolling  kitchen,  lumbering 
forward,  smoking  from  all  its  pipes  and  caldrons,  with 
the  regimental  cook  springing  up  to  inspect  the  progress 
of  his  savory  ragout. 

After  the  formless  tumult  of  the  wheels,  the  stony 
street  resounds  again  to  the  age-old  rhythm  of  marching 
men.  Another  detachment.  .  .  . 

You  dress  quickly,  seize  the  big  box  of  cigarettes  kept 
ready  for  this  time,  and,  taking  the  children  by  the  hand, 
go  out  to  help  welcome  the  newcomers  as  they  settle 
down  for  their  three  weeks'  rest. 

I  have  told  you  that  Crouy  has  a  thousand  inhabitants. 
There  are  twelve  hundred  men  in  a  regiment.  Perhaps 
you  can  imagine  that  when  the  troops  are  there  men 
seem  to  ooze  from  every  pore  of  the  town.  There  are 
no  great  barracks  erected  for  them,  you  understand. 
Somehow  Crouy  people  make  themselves  small,  move 
over  to  the  edge,  and  make  the  necessary  room.  There 
are  seventy  soldiers  sleeping  017  straw  in  the  big  hall 
which  was  before  the  war  used  for  a  concert-room  or  for 
amateur  theatricals;  two  hundred  are  housed  in  what  is 

' 


NOTES  FROM  A  FRENCH  VILLAGE          23 

left  of  the  old  salles  de  garde  of  the  ruined  castle,  old 
guard-rooms  which  after  five  hundred  years  see  them 
selves  again  filled  with  French  fighting-men;  every 
barn-loft  is  filled  with  them;  every  empty  shed  has  a 
thick  layer  of  straw  on  the  ground  and  twenty  to  thirty 
men  encamped;  every  empty  stable  has  been  carefully 
cleaned  and  prepared  for  them;  every  empty  room  har 
bors  one  or  more  officers;  every  attic  has  ten  or  fifteen 
men.  One  unused  shop  is  transformed  into  the  regi 
mental  infirmary,  and  hangs  out  the  Red  Cross  flag;  an 
other  sees  the  quartermaster  and  his  secretaries  installed 
at  desks  improvised  from  pine  boards;  a  sentry  stands 
before  the  Town  Hall  where  the  colonel  has  his  head 
quarters,  and  another  guards  the  fine  old  house  which  has 
the  honor  of  sheltering  the  regimental  flag. 

The  street,  our  quiet,  sleepy  street,  is  like  an  artery 
pulsing  with  rapid  vibrations;  despatch-riders  dash  up 
and  down;  camions  rumble  by;  a  staff-car  full  of  offi 
cers  looking  seriously  at  maps  halts  for  a  moment  and 
passes  on;  from  out  the  courtyard  where  a  regimental 
kitchen  is  installed  a  file  of  soldiers  issues,  walking  on 
eggs  as  they  carry  their  hot  stew  across  the  street  to  the 
lodging  where  they  eat  it.  Our  green- vegetable  woman, 
that  supreme  flower  of  a  race  of  consummate  gardeners, 
arrives  at  the  house,  breathless  and  smiling,  with  only  an 
onion  and  a  handful  of  potatoes  in  her  usually  well-garn 
ished  donkey-cart. 

"  Que  voulez-vous,  madaine?"  she  apologizes,  sure  of 
your  sympathy.  "  The  instant  I  leave  the  garden,  they 


24  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

set  upon  me.  You  can't  refuse  your  own  soldiers,  can 
you!  With  my  Jacques  at  the  front?  " 

Everywhere,  everywhere  where  there  is  a  scrap  of 
cover  from  the  sky,  are  huddled  horses,  mules,  guns, 
wagons,  and  camions.  Every  spreading  chestnut-tree 
harbors,  not  a  blacksmith,  but  a  dozen  army  mules  tied 
close  to  the  trunk.  Near  the  station  the  ground  under 
the  close-set  double  line  of  trees  in  the  long  mall  is  cov 
ered  to  its  last  inch  with  munition-wagons  and  camions, 
and  to  reach  the  post-office  on  the  other  side  of  the  little 
shady  square  you  must  pick  your  way  back  of  lines  of 
guns,  set  end  to  end,  without  an  inch  to  spare.  The 
aviators,  whose  machines  wheel  ceaselessly  over  the 
town,  can  see  no  change  in  its  aspect,  unless  perhaps  the 
streets  and  courtyards  send  up  to  the  sky  a  gray-blue 
reflection  like  its  own  color.  Not  another  trace  of  twelve 
hundred  men  with  all  their  impedimenta  betrays  to  the 
occasional  German  airman  that  Crouy's  life  is  trans 
formed. 

Three  times  a  week,  in  the  late  afternoon,  just  before 
sunset,  the  regimental  band  gives  a  concert,  in  our  big 
open  square  under  the  sycamores,  where,  in  the  softer 
passages  of  the  music,  the  sound  of  splashing  water 
mingles  with  the  flutes.  All  Crouy  puts  on  its  Sunday 
best  and  comes  out  to  join  itself  to  the  horizon-blue 
throngs,  and  the  colonel  and  his  staff  stand  under  the 
greatest  of  the  sycamores,  listening  soberly  to  the  music 
and  receiving  paternally  the  salutes  of  the  men  who 
saunter  near  him. 


NOTES  FROM  A  FRENCH  VILLAGE          25 

Once  during  their  stay  there  is  a  prise-d'armes,  on  the 
square,  when  the  men  who  have  especially  distinguished 
themselves  are  decorated  with  the  croLv  de  guerre.  All 
Crouy  goes  to  see  that,  too — all  Crouy  means  now,  you 
must  remember,  old  men,  women,  little  children,  and 
babies — and  stands  respectfully,  with  tear-wet  eyes, 
watching  the  white-haired  colonel  go  down  the  line,  pin 
ning  on  each  man's  breast  the  sign  of  honor,  taking  his 
hand  in  a  comrade's  clasp  and  giving  him  on  both  cheeks 
a  brother's  kiss.  That  is  a  sight  the  children  there  will 
not  forget,  those  two,  bronzed,  grave  soldiers'  faces, 
meeting  under  their  steel  casques  in  the  salutation  of 
blood-kin. 

And  once  there  is  a  mass  said  for  the  regimental  dead 
in  the  old,  old  church.  All  Crouy  goes  there  too,  all 
Crouy  lost  in  the  crowd  of  soldiers  who  kneel  in  close 
ranks  on  the  worn  stones,  the  sonorous  chant  of  whose 
deep  voices  fills  the  church  to  the  last  vaulting  of  the 
arches  which  echoed  to  the  voices  of  those  other  Cru 
saders,  praying  there  for  their  dead,  six  hundred  years 
ago.  The  acolytes  at  the  altar  are  soldiers  in  their  shabby 
honorable  uniforms;  the  priest  is  a  soldier;  the  choir  is 
filled  with  them  singing  the  responses;  in  an  interval 
of  the  service  up  rise  two  of  them  near  the  organ,  violin 
in  hand,  and  the  French  church  rings  with  the  angel's 
voice  of  whom  but  old  Johann  Sebastian  Bach — oh,  gen 
erous-hearted,  wise  poilu  musicians,  who  hate  only  what 
is  hateful! 


26  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

At  the  end,  suddenly,  the  regimental  music  is  there, 
wood-wind,  trumpets,  and  all.  The  service  comes  to  a 
close  in  one  great  surging  chant,  upborne  on  the  throb 
bing  waves  of  the  organ  notes.  The  church  rings  to  the 
pealing  brass,  thrilling  violins,  the  men's  deep  voices.  .  .  . 

Ah,  when  will  it  resound  to  the  song  of  thanksgiving 
at  the  end  ? 


THE  PERMISSIONAIRE 

"  What  was  in  the  ground,  alive,  they  could  not  kill" 

Two  weeks  after  the  German  retreat  from  the  Aisne 
was  rumored,  five  days  after  the  newspapers  were  print 
ing  censored  descriptions  of  the  ravaged  country  they 
had  left,  and  the  very  moment  the  official  bulletin  con 
firmed  the  news,  Pierre  Nidart  presented  himself  to  his 
lieutenant  to  ask  for  a  furlough,  the  long-delayed  fur 
lough,  due  for  more  than  two  years  now,  which  he  had 
never  been  willing  to  take.  His  lieutenant  frowned  un 
easily,  and  did  not  answer.  After  a  moment's  silence 
he  said,  gently,  "  You  know,  my  old  fellow,  the  Boches 
have  left  very  little  up  there." 

(Nidart  was  not  an  old  fellow  at  all,  being  but  thirty- 
four,  and  the  father  of  two  young  children.  His  lieu 
tenant  used  the  phrase  as  a  term  of  endearment,  because 
he  had  a  high  opinion  of  his  silent  sergeant.)  Nidart 
made  no  answer  to  his  officer's  remark.  The  lieutenant 
took  it  that  he  persisted  in  wanting  his  furlough.  As 
he  had  at  least  three  furloughs  due  him,  it  was  hard  to 
refuse.  There  was  a  long  silence.  Finally,  fingering 
the  papers  on  the  dry-goods  box  which  served  him  as 
desk,  the  lieutenant  said :  "  Your  wife  is  young.  They 
say  the  Germans  carried  back  to  work  in  Germany  all 

27 


28  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

women  under  forty-five,  or  those  who  hadn't  children 
under  three." 

Nidart  swallowed  hard,  looked  sick,  and  obstinately 
said  nothing.  His  lieutenant  turned  with  a  sigh  and  mo 
tioned  the  fourrier  to  start  the  red  tape  for  the  authori 
zation  for  the  furlough.  "  All  right,  I  think  I  can  man 
age  a  three  weeks'  ' permission'  for  you.  They're 
allowing  that,  I  hear,  to  men  from  the  invaded  regions 
who  haven't  taken  any  furloughs  since  the  beginning  of 
the  war." 

'  Yes,  mon  Lieutenant.  Thank  you,  mon  Lieut  en^ 
ant."  Nidart  saluted  and  went  back  to  his  squad. 

His  lieutenant  shook  his  head,  murmuring  to  the 
fourrier:  "  Those  north-country  men !  There  is  no  use 
saying  a  word  to  them.  They  won't  believe  that  their 
homes  and  families  aren't  there,  till  they  see  with  their 
own  eyes  .  .  .  and  when  they  do  see.  .  .  .  I've  heard 
that  some  of  the  men  in  these  first  regiments  that  fol 
lowed  up  the  Boche  retreat  across  the  devastated  regions 
went  crazy  when  they  found  their  own  villages  .  .  . 
Nidart  has  just  one  idea  in  his  head,  poor  devil! — to  go 
straight  before  him,  like  a  homing  pigeon,  till  .  .  ." 
He  stopped,  his  face  darkening. 

"  Oh,  damn  the  Boches ! "  the  fourrier  finished  the 
sentence  fervently. 

"  You  see,  Nidart  is  a  master-mason  by  trade,  and 
he  built  their  own  little  house.  He  carries  around  a 
snapshot  of  it,  with  his  wife  and  a  baby  out  in 
front." 


THE  PERMISSIONNAIRE  29^ 

"  Oh,  damn  the  Boches ! "  responded  the  fourrier  on 
a  deeper  note. 

"  And  like  all  those  village  workmen,  they  got  half 
their  living  out  of  their  garden  and  a  field  or  two.  And 
you've  read  what  the  Boches  did  to  the  gardens  and  fruit- 
trees." 

"Isn't  there  anything  else  we  can  talk  about?"  said 
the  fourrier. 

Nidart  passed  through  Paris  on  his  way  (those  being 
before  the  days  of  strktly  one-destination  furloughs) 
and,  extracting  some  very  old  bills  from  the  lining  of  his 
shoe,  he  spent  the  five  hours  between  his  trains  in  hasty 
purchasing.  At  the  hardware  shop,  where  he  bought  an 
ax,  a  hammer,  some  nails,  and  a  saw,  the  saleswoman's 
vivacious  curiosity  got  the  better  of  his  taciturnity,  and 
she  screwed  from  him  the  information  that  he  was  going 
back  to  his  home  in  the  devastated  regions. 

At  once  the  group  of  Parisian  working-people  and 
bourgeois  who  happened  to  be  in  the  shop  closed  in  on 
him  sympathetically,  commenting,  advising,  dissuading, 
offering  their  opinions  with  that  city-bred,  glib-tongued 
clatter  which  Nidart's  country  soul  scorned  and  de 
tested. 

"  No,  no,  my  friend,  it's  useless  to  try  to  go  back. 
The  Germans  have  made  a  desert  of  it.  My  cousin's 
wife  has  a  relative  who  was  in  the  regiment  that  first 
followed  the  Germans  after  their  retreat  from  Noyon, 
and  he  said  ..." 

Government  is  going  to  issue  a  statement,  say- 


30  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

ing  that  land  will  be  given  in  other  parts  of  France  to 
people  from  those  regions,  because  it's  of  no  use  to  try 
to  rebuild  from  under  the  ruins." 

"  No,  not  the  Government,  it's  a  society  for  the  Pro 
tection  of  the  People  in  the  Invaded  Regions;  and  they 
are  Americans,  millionaires,  every  one.  And  it's  in 
America  they  are  offering  land,  near  New  York." 

"  No,  near  Buenos  Aires." 

"  The  Americans  want  the  regions  left  as  a  monu 
ment,  as  a  place  to  see.  You'll  make  much  more  money 
as  a  guide  to  tourists  than  trying  to  .  .  . " 

"  Your  family  won't  be  there,  you  know.  The  Boches 
took  all  the  able-bodied  women  back  with  them;  and  the 
children  were  sent  to  .  .  ." 

ff  Give  me  my  change,  won't  you! "  said  Nidart  with 
sudden  fierceness,  to  the  saleswoman.  He  turned  his 
back  roughly  on  the  chattering  group  and  went  out. 
They  shrugged  their  shoulders.  "  These  country-people. 
Nothing  on  earth  for  them  but  their  little  hole  of  a  vil 
lage!" 

Down  the  street,  Nidart,  quickening  to  an  angry  stride 
his  soldierly  gait,  hurried  along  to  a  seed-store. 

That  evening  when  he  got  into  the  battered,  dingy, 
third-class  compartment  of  the  train  going  north,  he 
could  hardly  be  seen  for  the  innumerable  packages  slung 
about  his  person.  He  pulled  out  from  one  bulging  pocket 
a  square  piece  of  bread,  from  another  a  piece  of  cheese, 
and  proceeded  to  dine,  bent  forward  with  the  weight  of 
his  burdens  and  his  thoughts,  gazing  out  through  the 


THE  PERMISSIONNAIRE  31 

dirty  windows  at  the  flat  farming  country  jerking  by  him 
in  the  moonlight.  It  was  so  soon  after  the  retreat  that 
the  train  went  no  further  north  than  Noyon,  and  Nidart 
had  lived  far  beyond  Noyon.  About  midnight,  he  rolled 
off  the  train,  readjusted  his  packages  and  his  knapsack, 
and,  after  showing  his  perfectly  regular  sauf-conduit  to 
five  or  six  sentries  along  the  way,  finally  got  out  of  town. 

He  found  himself  on  the  long,  white  road  leading 
north.  It  was  the  road  down  which  they  had  driven 
once  a  week,  on  market-days.  Of  all  the  double  line  of 
noble  poplar-trees,  not  one  was  standing.  The  utterly 
changed  aspect  of  the  familiar  road  startled  him. 
Ahead  of  him  as  he  tramped  rapidly  forward,  was 
what  had  been  a  cross-roads,  now  a  gaping  hole.  Nidart, 
used  to  gaping  holes  in  roads,  walked  down  into  this, 
and  out  on  the  other  side.  He  was  panting  a  little,  but 
he  walked  forward  steadily  and  strongly.  .  .  . 

The  moon  shone  full  on  the  place  where  the  first  vil 
lage  had  stood,  the  one  where  his  married  sister  had 
lived,  where  he  and  his  wife  and  the  children  used  to 
come  for  Sunday  dinners  once  in  a  while.  He  stood 
suddenly  before  a  low,  confused  huddle  of  broken  bricks 
and  splintered  beams,  and  looked  about  him  uncompre 
hending.  The  silence  was  intense.  In  the  instant  be 
fore  he  understood  what  he  was  seeing,  he  heard  and  felt 
a  rapid  vibration,  his  own  heart  knocking  loudly.  Then 
he  understood. 

A  moment  later,  mechanically,  he  began  to  move 
about,  clambering  up  and  down,  aimlessly,  over  the  heaps 


32  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

of  rubble.  Although  he  did  not  know  it,  he  was  looking 
for  the  place  where  his  sister's  house  had  stood.  Pres 
ently  his  knees  gave  way  under  him.  He  sat  down  sud 
denly  on  a  tree-stump.  The  lopped-off  trunk  beside 
it  showed  it  to  have  been  an  old  cherry-tree.  Yes, 
his  sister's  big  cherry-tree,  the  pride  of  her  garden.  A 
long  strip  of  paper,  one  end  buried  in  a  heap  of  bits  of 
plaster,  fluttered  in  the  night-wind.  It  beat  against  his 
leg  like  some  one  calling  feebly  for  help.  The  moon 
emerged  from  a  cloud  and  showed  it  to  be  a  strip  of 
wall -paper;  he  recognized  the  pattern;  he  had  helped  his 
brother-in-law  put  it  on  the  bedroom  of  the  house.  His 
sister's  four  children  had  been  born  within  the  walls  of 
that  bedroom.  He  tried  to  fix  his  mind  on  those  chil 
dren,  not  to  think  of  any  other  children,  not  to  remem 
ber  his  own,  not  to  ... 

The  paper  beat  insistently  and  rhythmically  against 
his  leg  like  a  recurrent  thought  of  madness — he  sprang 
up  with  the  gesture  of  a  man  terrified,  and  stumbling 
wildly  among  the  formless  ruins  sought  for  the  road 
again. 

He  walked  heavily  after  this,  lifting  his  feet  with  an 
effort.  Several  miles  further,  at  the  heap  of  debris 
which  had  been  Falquieres,  where  his  wife's  family  had 
lived,  he  made  a  wide  detour  through  the  fields  to  avoid 
passing  closer  to  the  ruins.  At  the  next,  Bondry,  where 
he  had  been  born  and  brought  up,  he  tried  to  turn  aside, 
but  against  his  will  his  feet  carried  him  straight  to  the 
center  of  the  chaos.  When  the  first  livid  light  of  dawn 


THE  PERMISSIONNAIRE  33 

showed  him  the  two  stumps  of  the  big  apple-trees  before 
the  door,  which  his  grandfather  had  planted,  he  stopped 
short.  Of  the  house,  of  the  old  walled  garden,  not  a 
trace  beyond  the  shapeless  heap  of  stones  and  plaster. 
He  stood  there  a  long  time,  staring  silently.  The  light 
gradually  brightened,  until  across  the  level  fields  a  ray 
of  yellow  sunshine  struck  ironically  through  the  prone 
branches  of  the  murdered  trees  upon  the  gray  face  of 
the  man. 

At  this  he  turned  and,  walking  slowly,  dragging  his 
feet,  his  head  hanging,  his  shoulders  bent,  he  followed 
the  road  which  led  like  a  white  tape  laid  straight  across 
the  plain,  towards — towards  .  .  .  The  road  had  been 
mined  at  regular  intervals,  deep  and  broad  craters 
stretching  across  it,  enough  to  stop  a  convoy  of  camions, 
not  enough  to  stop  a  single  soldier,  even  though  he 
stumbled  along  so  wearily,  his  cumbersome  packages 
beating  against  his  legs  and  arms,  even  though  he 
walked  so  slowly,  more  and  more  slowly  as  he  came  in 
sight  of  the  next  heaped  and  tumbled  mound  of  debris. 
The  sun  rose  higher.  .  .  . 

Presently  it  shone,  with  April  clarity,  on  Ni- 
dart  lying,  face  downwards,  upon  a  heap  of  broken 
bricks. 

For  a  long  hour  it  showed  nothing  but  that, — the 
ruins,  the  prostrate  trees,  the  man,  like  them  stricken 
and  laid  low. 

Then  it  showed,  poor  and  miserable  under  that  pale- 
gold  light,  a  wretched  ant-like  procession  issuing  from 


34  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

holes  in  the  ground  and  defiling  slowly  along  the  scarred 
road  towards  the  ruins;  women,  a  few  old  men,  a  little 
band  of  pale  and  silent  children.  They  approached  the 
ruins  and  dispersed.  One  of  the  women,  leading  three 
children,  picked  her  way  wearily  among  the  heaps  of 
stone,  the  charred  and  twisted  beams  .  .  .  stopped 
short,  both  hands  at  her  heart. 

And  then  the  sun  reeled  in  the  sky  to  a  sound  which 
rang  as  strangely  from  that  silent  desolation  as  a  burst 
of  song  out  of  hell,  scream  after  scream  of  joy,  ringing 
up  to  the  very  heavens,  frantic,  incredulous,  magnificent 
joy- 
There  they  stood,  the  man  and  wife,  clasped  in  each 
others'  arms  in  the  ruins  of  their  home,  with  red,  swollen 
eyes,  smiling  with  quivering  lips,  silent.  Now  that  the 
first  wild  cries  had  gone  rocket-like  to  the  sky  and  fallen 
back  in  a  torrent  of  tears,  they  had  no  words,  no  words 
at  all.  They  clasped  each  other  and  the  children,  and 
wept,  constantly  wiping  the  tears  from  their  white  cheeks, 
to  see  each  other.  The  two  older  children,  a  little  shy  of 
this  father  whom  they  had  almost  forgotten,  drew  away 
constrained,  hanging  their  heads,  looking  up  bashfully 
under  their  bent  brows.  Nidart  sat  down  on  a  heap 
of  stone  and  drew  the  little  girl  to  him,  stroking  her 
hair.  He  tried  to  speak,  but  no  voice  issued  from  his 
lips.  His  wife  sat  down  beside  him,  laying  her  head  on 
his  shoulder,  spent  with  the  excess  of  her  relief.  They 
were  all  silent  a  long  time,  their  hearts  beginning  to  beat 


THE  PERMISSIONNAIRE  35 

in  the  old  rhythm,  a  sweet,  pale  peace  dropping  down 
upon  them. 

After  a  time,  the  youngest  child,  cowering  under  the 
woman's  skirts,  surprised  at  the  long  silence,  thrust  out 
a  little  pale  face  from  his  shelter.  The  man  looked  down 
on  him  and  smiled.  "  That's  a  Dupre,"  he  said  in  his 
normal  voice,  with  conviction,  all  his  village  lore  coming 
back  to  him.  "  I  know  by  the  Dupre  look  of  his  nose. 
He  looks  the  way  my  cousin  Jacques  Dupre  used  to,  when 
he  was  little." 

These  were  the  first  articulate  words  spoken.  With 
them,  he  turned  his  back  on  the  unfriendly,  unknowable 
immensity  of  the  world  in  which  he  had  lived,  exiled,  for 
three  years,  and  returned  into  the  close  familiar  com 
munity  of  neighbors  and  kin  where  he  had  lived  for 
thirty-four  years, — where  he  had  lived  for  hundreds  of 
years.  The  pulverized  wreck  of  this  community  lay  all 
about  him,  but  he  opened  its  impalpable  doors  and 
stepped  once  more  into  its  warm  humanity.  He  looked 
at  the  little  child  whom  he  had  never  seen  before  and 
knew  him  for  kin. 

His  wife  nodded.  "  Yes,  it's  Louise  and  Jacques* 
baby.  Louise  was  expecting  him,  you  know,  when  the 
mobilization  ...  he  was  born  just  after  Jacques  went 
away,  in  August.  We  heard  Jacques  was  killed  .  .  . 
we  have  heard  everything  .  .  .  that  Paris  was  taken, 
that  London  was  burned.  ...  I  have  heard  twice  that 
you  were  killed.  Louise  believed  it,  and  never  got  out 
of  bed  at  all  after  the  baby  came.  She  just  turned  over 


36  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

and  let  herself  die.  I  took  the  baby.  Somebody  had  to. 
That's  the  reason  I'm  here  now.  '  They  '  carried  off  all 
the  women  my  age  unless  they  had  children  under  three. 
They  thought  the  baby  was  mine." 

"  But  Jacques  isn't  killed,"  said  Nidart ;  "  he's  wounded^ 
with  one  wooden  leg,  frantic  to  see  Louise  and  the 
baby.  ..."  He  made  a  gesture  of  blame.  "Louise 
always  was  a  fool !  Anybody's  a  fool  to  give  up !  "  He 
looked  down  at  the  baby  and  held  out  his  hand.  "  Come 
here,  little  Jeannot." 

The  child  shrank  away  silently,  burrowing  deeper  into 
his  foster-mother's  skirts. 

"  He's  afraid,"  she  explained.  "  We've  had  to  make 
the  children  afraid  so  they  would  keep  out  of  sight,  and 
not  break  rules.  There  were  so  many  rules,  so  many  to 
salute  and  to  bow  to,  the  children  couldn't  remember; 
and  when  they  forgot,  they  were  so  dreadfully  cuffed,  or 
their  parents  fined  such  big  fines  ..." 

<f I  never  saluted!"  said  the  boy  of  ten,  wagging  his 
head  proudly.  '  You  have  to  have  something  on  your 
head  to  salute,  they  won't  let  you  do  it  bareheaded.  So  I 
threw  my  cap  in  the  fire." 

"  Yes,  he's  gone  bareheaded  since  the  first  days,  sum 
mer  and  winter,  rain  and  shine,"  said  his  mother. 

"  Here,  Jean-Pierre,"  said  his  father,  wrestling  with 
one  of  his  packages,  "  I've  got  a  hat  for  you.  I've  been 
saving  it  for  you,  lugged  it  all  over  because  I  wanted  my 
boy  to  have  it."  He  extracted  from  its  brown  canvas  bag 
a  German  helmet  with  the  spike,  which  he  held  out. 


THE  PERMISSIONNAIRE  37V 

"  And  I've  got  something  for  my  little  Berthe,  too." 
He  fumbled  in  an  inner  pocket.  "  I  made  it  myself,  near 
Verdun.  The  fellows  all  thought  I  was  crazy  to  work 
over  it  so,  when  I  didn't  know  if  I'd  ever  see  my  little 
girl  again;  but  I  was  pretty  sure  Maman  would  know 
how  to  take  care  of  you,  all  right."  He  drew  out  from 
a  nest  of  soft  rags  a  roughly  carved  aluminum  ring  and 
slipped  it  on  the  child's  forefinger. 

As  the  children  drew  off  a  little,  to  compare  and  ex 
amine,  their  parents  looked  into  each  other's  eyes,  the 
deep,  united,  serious  look  of  man  and  wife  before  a  com 
mon  problem. 

"  Eh  bien,  Paulette,"  said  the  man,  "  what  shall  we 
do?  Give  up?  Move  away?" 

"  Oh,  Pierre !  "  cried  his  wife.     "  You  wouldn't?  " 

For  answer,  he  shook  himself  free  of  his  packages  and 
began  to  undo  them,  the  ax,  the  hammer,  the  big  pack 
age  of  nails,  the  saw,  the  trowel,  the  paper  bags  of  seeds, 
the  pickax.  He  spread  them  out  on  the  clutter  of  broken 
bricks,  plaster,  splintered  wood,  and  looked  up  at  his 
wife.  "  That's  what  I  bought  on  the  way  here." 

His  wife  nodded.  "  But  have  you  had  your  breakfast? 
You'd  better  eat  something  before  you  begin." 

While  he  ate  his  bread  and  munched  his  cheese,  she 
told  him,  speaking  with  a  tired  dullness,  something  of 
what  had  happened  during  the  years  of  captivity.  It 
came  out  just  as  she  thought  of  it,  without  sequence, 
one  detail  obscuring  another.  "  There  wasn't  much  left 


38  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

inside  the  house  when  they  finally  blew  it  up.  They'd 
been  taking  everything  little  by  little.  No,  they  weren't 
bad  to  women ;  they  were  horrid  and  rough  and  they 
stole  everything  they  could,  but  they  didn't  mistreat  us, 
only  some  of  the  foolish  girls.  You  know  that  good-for- 
nothing  family  of  Boirats,  how  they'd  run  after  any 
man.  Well,  they  took  to  going  with  the  Boches;  but  any 
decent  woman  that  kept  out  of  sight  as  much  as  she 
could,  no,  I  wasn't  afraid  of  them  much  that  way,  unless 
they  were  drunk.  Their  officers  were  awfully  hard  on 
them  about  everything — hard!  They  treated  them  like 
dogs.  We  were  sorry  for  them  sometimes." 

Yes,  this  ignorant  woman,  white  and  thin  and  ragged, 
sitting  on  the  wreck  of  her  home,  said  this. 

"  Did  you  hear  how  they  took  every  single  thing  in 
copper  or  brass — Grandfather's  candlesticks,  the  andi 
rons,  the  handles  of  the  clothes-press,  the  door-knobs, 
and  all,  every  one  of  my  saucepans  and  kettles?"  Her 
voice  trembled  at  this  item.  :t  The  summer  after  that,  it 
was  everything  in  linen.  I  had  just  the  chemise  I  had 
on  my  back  .  .  .  even  what  was  on  the  clothes-line,  dry 
ing,  they  took.  The  American  Committee  distributed 
some  cotton  material  and  I  made  a  couple  for  me  and 
Berthe,  and  some  drawers  for  Jean-Pierre  and  the  baby. 
That  was  when  we  could  still  get  thread.  The  winter 
after  that,  it  was  woolen  they  took,  everything,  especially 
mattresses.  Their  officers  made  them  get  every  single 
mattress  in  town,  except  the  straw  ones.  Alice  Bernard's 
mother,  they  jerked  her  mattress  right  out  from  under 


THE  PERMISSIONNAIRE  39 

her,  and  left  her  lying  on  the  bed-ropes.  And  M.  le 
Cure,  he  was  sick  with  pneumonia  and  they  took  his, 
that  way,  and  he  died.  But  the  Boches  didn't  dare  not 
to.  Their  officers  would  have  shot  them  if  they  hadn't." 

"  I  can  make  beds  for  you,"  he  said.  "  There  must  be 
trenches  somewhere,  near," — she  nodded, — "  they'll  have 
left  some  wire-netting  in  an  abri.  You  make  a  square  of 
wood,  and  put  four  legs  to  it,  and  stretch  the  wire-netting 
over  it  and  put  straw  on  that.  But  we  had  some  wire- 
netting  of  our  own  that  was  around  the  chicken-yard." 

"  Oh,  they  took  that,"  she  explained,—"  that,  and  the 
doors  of  the  chicken-house,  and  they  pried  off  our 
window-cases  and  door-jambs  and  carried  those  off  the 
last  days,  too  .  .  .  but  there  was  one  thing  they  wouldn't 
do,  no,  not  even  the  Boches,  and  that  was  this  dirty 
work !  "  She  waved  her  hand  over  the  destruction  about 
her,  and  pointed  to  the  trees  across  the  road  in  the  field, 
all  felled  accurately  at  the  same  angle.  "  We  couldn't 
understand  much  of  what  happened  when  they  were  get 
ting  ready  to  leave,  but  some  of  them  had  learned 
enough  French  to  tell  us  they  wouldn't  '  do  it ' — we 
didn't  know  what.  They  told  us  they  would  go  away 
and  different  troops  would  come.  And  Georges  Duvalet's 
boy  said  they  told  him  that  the  troops  who  were  to  come 
to  'do  it '  were  criminals  out  of  the  prisons  that  the 
officers  had  let  out  if  they  would  '  do  it ' — all  this  time 
we  didn't  know  what,  and  somebody  said  it  was  to  pour 
oil  on  us  and  burn  us,  the  way  they  did  the  people  in  the 
barn  at  Vermadderville.  But  there  wasn't  anything  we 


40  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

could  do  to  prevent  it.  We  couldn't  run  away.  So  we 
stayed,  and  took  care  of  the  children.  All  the  men  who 
could  work  at  all  and  all  the  women  too,  unless  they 
had  very  little  children,  were  marched  away,  off  north, 
to  Germany,  with  just  what  few  extra  things  they  could 
put  in  a  big  handkerchief.  Annette  Cagnon,  she  was 
eighteen,  and  had  to  go,  but  her  mother  stayed  with 
the  younger  children — her  mother  has  been  sort  of 
crazy  ever  since.  She  had  such  a  long  fainting  turn 
when  Annette  went  by,  with  a  German  soldier,  we 
thought  we  never  could  bring  her  to  life.  ..."  The 
rough,  tired  voice  shook  a  moment,  the  woman  rested 
her  head  again  on  her  husband's  arm,  holding  to  him 
tightly.  "  Pierre,  oh  Pierre,  if  we  had  known  what  was 
to  come, — no,  we  couldn't  have  lived  through  it,  not  any 
of  us ! "  He  put  his  great,  workingman's  hand  on  her 
rough  hair,  gently. 

She  went  on :  "  And  then  the  troops  who  had  been 
here  did  go  away  and  the  others  came,  and  they  made 
the  few  of  us  who  were  left  go  down  into  the  cellars 
of  those  old  houses  down  the  road.  They  told  us  to  stay 
there  three  days,  and  if  we  went  out  before  we'd  get  shot. 
We  waited  for  two  whole  days.  The  water  they  had 
given  us  was  all  gone,  and  then  old  Granny  Arnoux  said 
she  was  all  alone  in  the  world,  so  it  wouldn't  make  any 
difference  if  she  did  get  shot.  She  wanted  to  make  sure 
that  her  house  was  all  right.  You  know  what  she  thought 
of  her  house  1  So  she  came  up  and  we  waited.  And  in 
half  an  hour  we  heard  her  crutches  coming  back  on  the 


THE  PERMISSIONNAIRE  41 

road,  and  she  was  shrieking  out.  We  ran  up  to  see. 
She  had  fallen  down  in  a  heap.  She  hasn't  known  any 
thing  since;  shakes  all  the  time  as  if  she  were  in  a  chill. 
She  was  the  first  one;  she  was  all  alone,  when  she  saw 
what  they  had  done  .  .  .  and  you  know  ..." 

Nidart  turned  very  white,  and  stood  up.  "  God !  yes, 
I  know !  /  was  alone !  " 

"  Since  then,  ten  days  ago,  the  French  soldiers  came 
through.  We  didn't  know  them  for  sure,  we  were  ex 
pecting  to  see  the  red  trousers.  I  asked  everybody  about 
you,  but  nobody  knew.  There  are  so  many  soldiers  in 
an  army.  Then  Americans  came  in  cars  and  brought  us 
bread,  and  blankets  and  some  shoes,  but  they  have  leather 
soles  and  I  make  the  children  keep  them  for  best,  they 
wear  out  so.  And  since  then  the  Government  has  let 
the  camions  that  go  through  to  the  front,  leave  bread 
and  meat  and  once  a  bag  of  potatoes  for  us.  The  prefet 
came  around  and  asked  if  we  wanted  to  be  sent  to  a 
refugee  home  in  Paris  or  stay  here,  and  of  course  I 
said  stay  here.  The  children  and  I  have  come  every  clay 
to  work.  We've  got  the  plaster  and  bricks  cleared  out 
from  the  corner  of  the  fireplace,  and  I  cook  there,  though 
there  isn't  any  chimney  of  course,  but  I  think  the  tiles  of 
the  kitchen  floor  are  mostly  all  there  still.  And  oh, 
Pierre,  we  have  one  corner  of  the  garden  almost  cleared, 
and  the  asparagus  is  coming  up!  Come  and  see!  They 
cut  down  everything  they  could  see,  even  the  lilac  bushes, 
but  what  was  in  the  ground,  alive,  they  couldn't  kill." 

Nidart  put  the  shovel  in  his  wife's  hand,  and  took  up 


42  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

the  pickax.  "  Time  spent  in  traveling  isn't  counted  on 
furloughs,"  he  said,  "  so  we  have  twenty-one  days,  count 
ing  to-day.  The  garden  first,  so's  to  get  in  the  seeds." 

They  clambered  over  the  infernal  disorder  of  the 
ruins  of  the  house,  and  picked  their  way  down  and  back 
into  what  had  been  the  garden.  A  few  sections  of  the 
wall  were  still  standing,  its  thick  solidity  resisting  even 
dynamite  petards. 

"  Oh,  see,  almost  all  of  the  pleached  trees  are  saved !  " 
cried  Nidart,  astonished,  "  that  part  of  the  wall  didn't 
fall." 

"  I'm  not  sure  I  pruned  those  right,"  said  his  wife 
doubtfully,  glancing  at  them.  "  I  couldn't  remember 
whether  you  left  two  or  four  buds  on  the  peaches,  and 
I  just  gave  up  on  the  big  grapevine.  It  grew  so,  it  got 
all  ahead  of  me !  " 

"  Did  they  bear  well?  "  asked  the  man,  looking  across 
the  trash  heap  at  the  well-remembered  trees  and  vines. 
"  We'd  better  leave  those  till  some  odd  time,  they  won't 
need  much  care.  I  can  do  them  between  other  things 
some  time  when  I'm  too  tired  to  do  anything  else.  Here 
is  where  the  big  job  is."  He  looked  the  ground  over 
with  a  calculating  eye  and  announced  his  plan  of  cam 
paign. 

"  We  won't  try  to  carry  the  rubbish  out.  It's  too 
heavy  for  you,  and  my  time  has  got  to  go  as  far  as  it 
can  for  the  important  things.  We'll  just  pile  it  all  up 
in  a  line  along  the  line  where  the  walls  used  to  stand. 
All  of  us  know  that  line !  I'll  use  the  pickax,  and  Maman 


THE  PERMISSIONNAIRE  43 

the  shovel.  Jean-Pierre  will  throw  the  bigger  pieces  over 
on  the  line,  and  Berthe  will  go  after  and  pick  up  the 
littler  ones." 

They  set  to  work,  silently,  intensely.  When  they 
reached  the  currant-bushes,  all  laid  low,  Pierre  gave  a 
growl  of  wrath  and  scorn,  but  none  of  them  slack 
ened  their  efforts.  About  eleven  the  big  convoy  of 
camions  on  the  way  to  the  front  came  through,  lurching 
along  the  improvised  road  laid  out  across  the  fields.  The 
workers,  lifting  their  eyes  for  the  first  time  from  their 
labors,  saw  at  a  distance  on  the  main  road  the  advance 
guard  of  the  road-menders  already  there,  elderly  sol 
diers,  gray-haired  territorials,  with  rakes  and  shovels, 
and  back  of  them,  shuttle-like,  the  big  trucks  with  road- 
metal  coming  and  going. 

Reluctantly  leaving  her  work,  Paulette  went  to  get  the 
supplies  for  dinner,  and  started  an  open-air  fire  in  the 
cleared-out  corner  of  the  chimney.  Over  this  she  hung 
a  big  pot,  and  leaving  it  to  boil  she  hurried  back  to  her 
shovel.  "  The  soup-kettle  and  the  flat-irons,"  she  told 
her  husband,  "  they  were  too  hard  to  break  and  too  heavy 
to  carry  away,  and  they  are  about  all  that's  left  of  what 
was  in  the  house." 

"  No,  I  found  an  iron  fork,"  said  Berthe,  "  but  it  was 
all  twisted.  Jean-Pierre  said  he  thought  he  could  ..." 

"  Don't  talk,"  said  their  father  firmly, — "  you  don't 
work  so  fast  when  you  talk." 

At  noon  they  went  back  to  the  fire  burning  under  the 
open  sky,  in  the  blackened  corner  of  the  fireplace  where 


44  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

it  had  cooked  the  food  during  the  years  past.  The  man 
looked  at  it  strangely,  and  turned  his  eyes  away. 

"Now  where  is  your  fork,  little  Berthe?"  he  said. 
"  I'll  straighten  it  for  you.  With  that  and  my  kit  ... " 

"  I  have  my  jackknife  too,"  said  Jean-Pierre. 

They  ate  thus,  dipping  up  the  stew  in  the  soldier's 
gamelle,  using  his  knife  and  fork  and  spoon  and  the 
straightened  iron  fork.  The  baby  was  fed  on  bread 
soaked  in  the  gravy,  and  on  bits  of  potato  given  him  from 
the  end  of  a  whittled  stick.  In  the  twenty  minutes'  rest 
which  their  captain  allowed  the  little  force  after  the 
meal,  he  and  Jean-Pierre  whittled  out  two  wooden  forks, 
two-tined,  from  willow  twigs.  "  That's  one  apiece  now," 
said  Nidart,  "  and  the  asparagus  bed  is  all  cleared  off. 
We  have  made  a  beginning." 

They  went  back  to  work,  stooping,  straining,  heaving, 
blinded  with  the  flying  plaster,  wounded  with  the  sharp 
edges  of  the  shattered  stones.  The  sun  shone  down  on 
them  with  heavenly  friendliness,  the  light,  sparkling  air 
lifted  the  hair  from  their  hot  foreheads.  After  a  time, 
Nidart,  stopping  for  an  instant  to  wipe  away  the  sweat 
which  ran  down  into  his  eyes,  said :  "  The  air  has  a  dif 
ferent  feel  to  it  here.  And  the  sun  looks  different.  It 
looks  like  home." 

At  four  they  stopped  to  munch  the  piece  of  bread 
which  is  the  supplementary  meal  of  French  working- 
people  at  that  hour.  Nidart  embellished  it  with  a  slice  of 
cheese  for  each,  which  made  the  meal  a  feast.  They 
talked  as  they  ate;  they  began  to  try  to  bridge  over  the 


THE  PERMISSIONNAIRE  45 

gap  between  them.  But  they  lacked  words  to  tell  what 
lay  back  of  them;  only  the  dry  facts  came  out. 

;<  Yes,  I've  been  wounded,  there's  a  place  on  my  thigh, 
here,  put  your  hand  and  feel,  where  there  isn't  any  flesh 
over  the  bone,  just  skin.  It  doesn't  bother  me  much, 
except  when  I  try  to  climb  a  ladder.  Something  about 
that  position  I  can't  manage  .  .  .  and  for  a  mason  ..." 

"  I'll  climb  the  ladders,"  said  Jean-Pierre. 

:c  Yes,  I  was  pretty  sick.  It  got  gangrene  some.  They 
thought  I  wouldn't  live.  I  was  first  in  a  big  hospital 
near  the  front,  and  then  in  a  convalescent  hospital  in 
Paris.  It  was  awfully  dull  when  I  got  better.  They 
thought  if  I  had  made  an  application  to  be  re-forme  and 
retired  I  could  be  like  Jacques  Dupre  with  his  wooden 
leg.  But  with  you  and  the  children  here  .  .  .  what 
could  I  have  done  with  myself?  So  I  didn't  say  any 
thing,  and  when  my  time  was  up  in  the  hospital  I  went 
back  to  the  trenches.  That  was  a  year  ago  last  winter." 

"  Berthe  and  Jean-Pierre  had  the  mumps  that  win 
ter,"  said  their  mother.  "  The  baby  didn't  get  it.  I  kept 
him  away  from  them.  The  Boches  shut  us  up  as  though 
we  had  the  smallpox.  They  were  terribly  strict  about 
any  sickness.  The  Boche  regimental  doctor  came  every 
day.  He  took  very  good  care  of  them." 

"  He  wanted  to  give  me  a  doll  because  I  didn't  cry 
when  he  looked  in  my  throat,"  said  Berthe. 

"  Of  course  she  didn't  take  it,"  said  Jean-Pierre.  "  I 
told  her  I'd  break  it  all  to  pieces  if  she  did." 

"  But  she  cried  afterwards." 


46  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

"  Come,"  said  the  father,  "  we've  finished  our  bread. 
Back  to  work." 

That  night,  after  the  children  were  asleep  on  straw 
in  the  cellar  down  the  road,  their  parents  came  back 
to  wander  about  in  the  moonlight  over  their  ravaged 
little  kingdom.  The  wife  said  little,  drawing  her  breath 
irregularly,  keeping  a  strained  grasp  on  her  husband's 
arm.  For  the  most  part  he  succeeded  in  speaking  in  a 
steady  voice  of  material  plans  for  the  future, — how  he 
could  get  some  galvanized  roofing  out  of  the  nearest 
trench  abri;  how  he  could  use  the  trunks  of  the  felled 
trees  to  strengthen  his  hastily  constructed  brick  walls, 
and  for  roof-beams ;  what  they  could  plant  in  the  garden 
and  the  field — things  which  she  and  the  children  could 
cultivate  after  he  had  gone  back. 

At  this  reminder  of  the  inevitable  farewell  again  be 
fore  them,  the  wife  broke  out  in  loud  wailings,  shivering, 
clutching  at  him  wildly.  He  drew  her  down  on  a  pile 
of  rubbish,  put  his  arms  around  her,  and  said  in  a  per 
emptory  tone :  "  Paulette !  Listen !  You  are  letting  the 
Bodies  beat  you! "  He  used  to  her  the  tone  he  used  for 
his  squad,  his  new  soldier's  voice  which  the  war  had 
taught  him,  the  tone  which  carried  the  laggards  up  over 
the  top.  At  the  steel-like  ring  of  it  his  wife  was 
silent. 

He  went  on :  "  There's  nothing  any  of  us  can  do  but 
to  go  on.  The  only  thing  to  do  is  to  go  on  without  mak 
ing  a  fuss.  That's  the  motto  in  the  army,  you  know. 


THE  PERMISSIONNAIRE  47 

Don't  make  a  fuss."  He  lifted  his  head  and  looked 
around  at  his  home  dismantled,  annihilated.  "  Not  to 
give  up, — that  and  the  flatirons  are  about  all  the  Boches 
have  left  us,  don't  you  see  ?  " 

He  was  silent  a  moment  and  went  on  with  his  con 
structive  planning.  "  Perhaps  I  can  get  enough  lime 
sent  on  from  Noyon  to  really  rebuild  the  chimney.  With 
that,  and  a  roof,  and  the  garden,  and  the  allocation  from 
the  Government  .  .  ." 

"  Yes,  Pierre,"  said  his  wife  in  a  trembling  voice.  She 
did  not  weep  again. 

He  himself,  however,  was  not  always  at  this  pitch  of 
stoicism.  There  were  times  when  he  looked  up  sud 
denly  and  felt,  as  though  for  the  first  time,  the  downfall 
and  destruction  of  all  that  had  been  his  life.  At  such 
moments  the  wind  of  madness  blew  near  him.  The  night 
after  they  had  moved  from  the  cellar  into  the  half- 
roofed,  half-walled  hut,  to  sleep  there  on  the  makeshift 
beds,  he  lay  all  night  awake,  crushed  with  the  immensity 
of  the  effort  they  would  need  to  put  forth  and  with  the 
insignificance  of  any  progress  made.  There  came  before 
him  the  long  catalogue  of  what  they  had  lost,  the  little 
decencies  and  comforts  they  had  earned  and  paid  for  and 
owned.  He  sickened  at  the  squalid  expedients  of  their 
present  life.  They  were  living  like  savages;  never  again 
would  they  attain  the  self-respecting  order  which  had 
been  ravished  from  them,  which  the  ravishers  still  en 
joyed.  With  all  his  conscious  self  he  longed  to  give  up 
the  struggle,  but  something  more  than  his  conscious  self 


48  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

was  at  work.  The  tree  had  been  cut  down,  but  some 
thing  was  in  the  ground,  alive. 

At  dawn  he  found  himself  getting  out  of  bed,  purpose 
fully.  To  his  wife's  question  he  answered :  "  I'm  going 
to  Noyon  to  buy  the  seed  for  the  field.  We  haven't  half 
enough  corn.  And  I  can  get  young  cabbage  plants 
there,  too,  they  say.  I  can  make  it  in  six  hours 
if  I  hurry." 

He  was  back  by  ten  o'clock,  exhausted,  but  aroused 
from  his  waking  nightmare — for  that  time !  But  it  came 
again  and  again. 

On  the  day  he  began  to  spade  up  the  field  he  noticed 
that  two  of  his  murdered  fruit-trees,  attached  by  a  rag 
of  bark  to  the  stumps,  were  breaking  out  into  leaf.  The 
sight  turned  him  sick  with  sorrow,  as  though  one  of  his 
children  had  smiled  at  him  from  her  deathbed.  He  bent 
over  the  tree,  his  eyes  burning,  and  saw  that  all  the  buds 
were  opening  trustfully.  His  heart  was  suffocating.  He 
said  to  himself :  "  They  have  been  killed !  They  are 
dead!  But  they  do  not  know  they  are  dead,  and  they 
try  to  go  on  living.  Are  we  like  that?  " 

In  an  instant  all  his  efforts  to  reanimate  his  assassi 
nated  life  seemed  pitiful,  childish,  doomed  to  failure. 
He  looked  across  the  field  at  the  shapeless,  roughly  laid 
brick  wall  he  had  begun,  and  felt  a  shamed  rage.  He 
was  half-minded  to  rush  and  kick  it  down. 

"  Papa,  come !  The  peonies  have  begun  to  come  up  in 
the  night  The  whole  row  of  them,  where  we  were  rak 
ing  yesterday." 


THE  PERMISSIONNAIRE  49 

The  man  found  his  wife  already  there,  bending  over 
the  sturdy,  reddish,  rounded  sprouts  pushing  strongly 
through  the  loosened  earth.  She  looked  up  at  him  with 
shining  eyes.  When  they  were  betrothed  lovers,  they 
had  together  planted  those  peonies,  pieces  of  old  roots 
from  her  mother's  garden.  "  You  see,"  she  said  again; 
"  I  told  you  what  was  in  the  ground  alive  they  couldn't 
kill !  " 

The  man  went  back  to  his  spading  silently,  and,  as  he 
labored  there,  a  breath  of  sovereign  healing  came  up  to 
him  from  that  soil  which  was  his.  The  burning  in  his 
eyes,  the  taste  of  gall  in  his  mouth,  he  had  forgotten 
when,  two  hours  later,  he  called  across  to  his  wife 
that  the  ground  for  the  beans  was  all  spaded  and  that 
she  and  Jean-Pierre  could  come  now  with  their  rakes, 
while  he  went  back  to  building  the  house-wall. 

But  that  quick  scorching  passage  through  fire  was 
nothing  compared  with  the  hour  which  waited  for  him 
in  his  garden  beside  the  wall  on  which  the  branches  of 
his  pleached  trees  and  vines  still  spread  out  thek  care 
fully  symmetrical  patterns.  He  had  put  off  caring  for 
them  till  some  odd  moment.  He  and  his  wife,  glancing 
at  them  from  time  to  time,  had  made  estimates  of  the 
amount  of  fruit  they  would  yield,  "  and  for  us  this  time 
— we  haven't  had  a  single  peach  or  apple  from  them. 
The  Boche  officers  sent  their  soldiers  to  get  them  al 
ways." 

"  Queer  they  should  have  left  those  unharmed,"  said 
his  wife  once,  and  he  had  answered :  "  Perhaps  the  man 


50  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

they  sent  to  kill  them  was  a  gardener  like  us.  I  know  I 
couldn't  cut  down  a  fruit-tree  in  full  bearing,  not  if  it 
were  in  hell  and  belonged  to  the  Kaiser.  Anybody  who's 
ever  grown  things  knows  what  it  is ! " 

One  gray  day  of  spring  rains  and  pearly  mists,  the  fire 
would  not  burn  in  the  only  half-constructed  chimney. 
Paulette  crouched  beside  it,  blowing  with  all  her  might, 
and  thinking  of  the  big  leathern  bellows  which  had  been 
carried  away  to  Germany  with  all  the  rest.  Jean-Pierre 
shaved  off  bits  from  a  dry  stick  and  Berthe  fed  them 
under  the  pot,  but  the  flame  would  not  brighten.  Pierre, 
coming  down,  cold  and  hungry,  from  the  top  of  the 
wall  where  he  had  been  struggling  with  a  section  of  roof, 
felt  physically  incapable  of  going  on  with  that  work  until 
he  had  eaten,  and  decided  to  use  the  spare  half-hour 
for  pruning  the  pleached  trees  and  vines.  Almost  at 
the  end  of  his  strength  after  the  long-continued  strained 
effort  to  accomplish  the  utmost  in  every  moment  and 
every  hour,  he  shivered  from  the  cold  of  his  wet  gar 
ments  as  he  stood  for  a  moment,  fumbling  to  reach  the 
pruning-shears.  But  he  did  not  give  himself  the  time 
to  warm  his  hands  at  the  fire,  setting  out  directly  again 
into  the  rain.  He  had  been  working  at  top  speed  ever 
since  the  breakfast,  six  hours  before,  of  black  coffee 
and  dry  bread. 

Sodden  with  fatigue  and  a  little  light-headed  from  lack 
of  food,  he  walked  along  the  wall  and  picked  out  the 
grapevine  as  the  least  tiring  to  begin  on.  He  knew  it  so 


THE  PERMISSIONNAIRE  51 

well  he  could  have  pruned  it  in  the  dark.  He  had  planted 
it  the  year  before  his  marriage,  when  he  had  been  build 
ing  the  house  and  beginning  the  garden.  It  had  not  been 
an  especially  fine  specimen,  but  something  about  the  sit 
uation  and  the  soil  had  exactly  suited  it,  and  it  had 
thriven  miraculously.  Every  spring,  with  the  first  ap 
proach  of  warm  weather,  he  had  walked  out,  in  the  eve 
ning  after  his  day's  work,  along  the  wall  to  catch  the 
first  red  bud  springing  amazingly  to  life  out  of  the  brown, 
woody  stems  which  looked  so  dead.  During  the  sum 
mers  as  he  had  sprayed  the  leaves,  and  manured  the  soil 
and  watered  the  roots  and  lifted  with  an  appraising  hand 
the  great  purple  clusters,  heavier  day  by  day,  he  had 
come  to  know  every  turn  of  every  branch.  In  the 
trenches,  during  the  long  periods  of  silent  inaction,  when 
the  men  stare  before  them  at  sights  from  their  past  lives, ' 
sometimes  Nidart  had  looked  back  at  his  wife  and  chil 
dren,  sometimes  at  his  garden  on  an  early  morning  in 
June,  sometimes  at  his  family  about  the  dinner-table  in 
the  evening,  and  sometimes  at  his  great  grapevine,  break 
ing  into  bud  in  the  spring,  or,  all  luxuriant  curving  lines, 
rich  with  leafage,  green  and  purple  in  the  splendor  of  its 
September  maturity. 

It  was  another  home-coming  to  approach  it  now,  and 
his  sunken,  bloodshot  eyes  foitod  rest  and  comfort  in 
dwelling  on  its  well-remembered  articulations.  He  no 
ticed  that  the  days  of  sunshine,  and  now  the  soft  spring 
rain,  had  started  it  into  budding.  He  laid  his  hand  ot* 
the  tough,  knotted,  fibrous  brown  stem. 


52  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

It  stirred  oddly,  with  a  disquieting  lightness  in  his 
hand.  The  sensation  was  almost  as  though  one  of  his 
own  bones  turned  gratingly  on  nothing.  The  sweat 
broke  out  on  his  forehead.  He  knelt  down  and  took 
hold  of  the  stem  lower  down.  The  weight  of  his  hand 
displaced  it.  It  swung  free.  It  had  been  severed  from 
the  root  by  a  fine  saw.  The  sap  was  oozing  from  the 
stump. 

The  man  knelt  there  in  the  rain,  staring  at  this,  as 
though  he  were  paralyzed.  He  did  not  know  what  he 
was  looking  at,  for  a  moment,  conscious  of  nothing  but 
a  cold  sickness.  He  got  up  heavily  to  his  feet,  then, 
and  made  his  way  to  the  next  vine.  Its  stem  gave  way 
also,  swinging  loose  with  the  horrible  limpness  of  a 
broken  limb. 

He  went  to  the  next,  a  peach-tree,  and  to  the  next,  a 
fine  pleached  pear.  Everything,  everything,  peach-trees, 
apple-trees,  grapevines,  everything  had  been  neatly  and 
dextrously  murdered,  and  their  corpses  left  hanging  on 
the  wall  as  a  practical  joke. 

The  man  who  had  been  sent  to  do  that  had  been  a 
gardener  indeed,  and  had  known  where  to  strike  to  reach 
the  very  heart  of  this  other  gardener  who  now,  his  hands 
over  his  face,  staggered  forward  and  leaned  his  body 
against  the  wall,  against  the  dead  vine  which  had  been 
so  harmless,  so  alive.  He  felt  something  like  an  inward 
bleeding,  as  though  that  neat,  fine  saw  had  severed  an 
artery  in  his  own  body. 

His  wife  stepped  out  in  the  rain  and  called  him.     He 


THE  PERMISSIONNAIRE  53 

neard  nothing  but  the  fine,  thin  voice  of  a  small  saw, 
eating  its  way  to  the  heart  of  living  wood. 

His  wife  seeing  him  stand  so  still,  his  face  against  the 
wall,  came  out  towards  him  with  an  anxious  face. 
11  Pierre,  Pierre!"  she  said.  She  looked  down,  saw  the 
severed  vine-stem  and  gave  a  cry  of  dismay.  "  Pierre, 
they  haven't  .  .  .  they  haven't  .  .  .  ! " 

She  ran  along  the  wall,  touching  them  one  by  one,  all 
the  well-known,  carefully  tended  stems.  Her  anger,  her 
sorrow,  her  disgust  burst  from  her  in  a  flood  of  out 
cries,  of  storming,  furious  words. 

Her  husband  did  not  move.  A  deathlike  cold  crept 
over  him.  He  heard  nothing  but  the  venomous,  fine  voice 
of  the  saw,  cutting  one  by  one  the  tissues  which  had  taken 
so  long  to  grow,  which  had  needed  so  much  sun  and  rain 
and  heat  and  cold,  and  twelve  years  out  of  a  man's  life. 
He  was  sick,  sick  of  it  all,  mourning  not  for  the  lost 
trees  but  for  his  lost  idea  of  life.  That  was  what  people 
were  like,  could  be  like,  what  one  man  could  do  in  cold 
blood  to  another — no  heat  of  battle  here,  no  delirium 
of  excitement,  cold,  calculated  intention !  He  would  give 
up  the  effort  to  resist,  to  go  on.  The  killing  had  been 
tco  thoroughly  done. 

His  wife  fell  silent,  frightened  by  his  stillness.  She 
forgot  her  own  anger,  her  grief,  she  forgot  the  dead 
trees.  They  were  as  nothing.  A  strong,  valiant  tender 
ness  came  into  her  haggard  face.  She  went  up  to  him, 
close,  stepping  into  his  silent  misery  with  the  secure  con 
fidence  only  a  wife  can  have  in  a  husband.  "  Come, 


54  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

Pierre,"  she  said  gently,  putting  her  red,  work-scarred 
hand  in  his.  She  drew  him  away  from  the  wall,  his 
arms  hanging  listlessly.  She  drew  him  into  the  shel 
tered  corner  of  the  room  he  had  half  finished.  She  set 
hot  food  before  him  and  made  him  eat  and  drink. 

The  rain  poured  down  in  a  gray  wall  close  before 
them.  The  heaped-up  ruins  were  all  around  them.  In 
side  the  shelter  the  children  ate  greedily,  heartily,  talk 
ing,  laughing,  quarreling,  playing.  The  fire,  now  thor 
oughly  ablaze,  flamed  brightly  beside  them.  The  kettle 
steamed. 

After  a  time  Nidart's  body  began  slowly  to  warm. 
He  began  to  hear  the  children's  voices,  to  see  his  wife 
dimly.  The  horror  was  an  hour  behind  him.  The 
blessed,  blurring  passage  of  the  moments  clouded  thick 
between  him  and  the  sound  of  that  neat  small  saw,  the 
sight  of  that  deft-handed  man,  coolly  and  smilingly  mur 
dering  .  .  . 

He  looked  at  his  wife  attentively,  as  she  tried  to  set 
in  order  their  little  corner  saved  from  chaos.  She  was 
putting  back  on  the  two  shelves  he  had  made  her  the 
wooden  forks  and  spoons  which  she  had  cleaned  to  a 
scrupulous  whiteness;  she  was  arranging  neatly  the 
wretched  outfit  of  tin  cans,  receptacles,  and  formless 
paper  packages  which  replaced  the  shining  completeness 
of  her  lost  kitchen;  she  was  smoothing  out  the  blankets 
on  their  rough  camp-beds;  she  was  washing  the  faces 
and  hands  of  the  children,  of  their  own  children  and  the 
little  foster-son,  the  child  of  the  woman  who  had  given 


THE  PERMISSIONNAIRE  55 

up,  who  had  let  herself  be  beaten,  who  had  let  herself  be 
killed,  who  had  abandoned  her  baby  to  be  cared  for  by 
another,  braver  woman. 

A  shamed  courage  began  slowly  to  filter  back  into  his 
drained  and  emptied  heart.  With  an  immense  effort  he 
got  up  from  the  tree-stump  which  served  for  chair  and 
went  towards  his  wife,  who  was  kneeling  before  the  little 
child  she  had  saved.  He  would  begin  again. 

"  Paulette,"  he  said  heavily,  "  I  believe  that  if  we  could 
get  some  grafting  wax  at  once,  we  might  save  those. 
Why  couldn't  we  cover  the  stumps  with  wax  to  keep  the 
roots  from  bleeding  to  death,  till  the  tops  make  real  buds, 
and  then  graft  them  on  to  the  stumps?  It's  too  late  to 
do  it  properly  with  dormant  scions,  but  perhaps  we  might 
succeed.  It  would  be  quicker  than  starting  all  over  again. 
The  roots  are  there,  still." 

He  raged  as  he  thought  of  this  poor  substitute  for  his 
splendid  trees,  but  he  set  his  teeth.  "  I  could  go  to 
Noyon.  They  must  have  wax  and  resin  there  in  the 
shops  by  this  time,  enough  for  those  few  stumps." 

The  little  boy  presented  himself  imploringly.  "  Oh, 
let  me  go !  I  could  do  it,  all  right.  And  you  could  get 
on  faster  with  the  roof.  There  aren't  but  ten  days  left, 
now." 

He  set  off  in  the  rain,  a  small  brave  spot  of  energy  in 
the  midst  of  death.  His  father  went  back  to  his  house 
building. 

The  roads  were  mended  now,  the  convoys  of  camions 
rumbled  along  day  after  day,  raising  clouds  of  dust; 


56  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

staff-cars  flashed  by;  once  in  a  while  a  non-militarized 
automobile  came  through,  sometimes  with  officials  of  the 
Government  on  inspection  tours,  who  distributed  miscel 
laneous  lots  of  seeds,  and  once  brought  Paulette  some 
lengths  of  cotton  stuff  for  sheets;  sometimes  with  re 
porters  from  the  Paris  newspapers;  once  with  some 
American  reporters  who  took  photographs,  and  gave 
some  bars  of  chocolate  to  the  children.  Several  times 
people  stopped,  foreigners,  Americans,  English,  some 
times  women  in  uniforms,  who  asked  a  great  many  ques 
tions  and  noted  down  the  answers.  Pierre  wondered  why 
those  able-bodied  young  men  were  not  in  some  army. 
He  had  thought  all  the  able-bodied  men  in  the  world 
were  in  some  army. 

For  the  most  part  he  found  all  these  people  rather 
futile  and  uninteresting,  as  he  had  always  found  city 
people,  and  paid  little  attention  to  them,  never  interrupt 
ing  his  work  to  talk  to  them,  his  work,  his  sacred  work, 
for  which  there  remained,  only  too  well  known,  a  small 
and  smaller  number  of  hours.  He  took  to  laboring  at 
night  whenever  possible. 

The  roof  was  all  on  the  one  tiny  room  before  the  date 
for  his  return.  The  chimney  was  rebuilt,  the  garden 
spaded,  raked,  and  planted.  But  the  field  was  not  fin 
ished.  It  takes  a  long  time  to  spade  up  a  whole  field. 
Pierre  worked  on  it  late  at  night,  the  moonlight  permit 
ting.  When  his  wife  came  out  to  protest,  he  told  her 
it  was  no  harder  than  to  march  all  night,  witfi 


THE  PERMISSIONNAIRE  57 

knapsack  and  blanket-roll  and  gun.  She  took  up  the 
rake  and  began  to  work  beside  him.  Under  their  tan 
they  were  both  very  white  and  drawn,  during  these  last 
days. 

The  day  before  the  last  came,  and  they  worked  all  day 
in  the  field,  never  lifting  their  eyes  from  the  soil.  But 
their  task  was  not  finished  when  night  came.  Pierre 
had  never  been  so  exacting  about  the  condition  of  the 
ground.  It  must  be  fine,  fine,  without  a  single  clod  left 
to  impede  the  growth  of  a  single  precious  seed.  This 
was  not  work  which,  like  spading,  could  be  done  at  night 
in  an  uncertain  light.  When  their  eyes,  straining  through 
the  thickening  twilight,  could  no  longer  distinguish  the 
lumps  of  earth,  he  gave  it  up,  with  a  long  breath,  and, 
his  rake  on  his  shoulder,  little  Berthe's  hand  in  his,  he 
crossed  the  mended  road  to  the  uncomely  little  shelter 
which  was  home. 

Paulette  was  bending  over  the  fire.  She  looked  up, 
and  he  saw  that  she  had  been  crying.  But  she  said 
nothing.  Nor  did  he,  going  to  lean  his  rake  against  the 
reconstructed  wall.  He  relinquished  the  implement  re 
luctantly,  and  all  through  the  meal  kept  the  feel  of  it 
in  his  hand. 

They  were  awake  when  the  first  glimmer  of  gray  dawn 
shone  through  the  empty  square  which  was  their  win 
dow.  Pierre  dressed  hurriedly  and  taking  his  rake  went 
across  the  road  to  the  field.  Paulette  blew  alive  the  coals 
of  last  night's  fire,  and  made  coffee  and  carried  it  across 
to  her  husband  with  a  lump  of  bread.  He  stopped  work 


58  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

to  drink  and  eat.  It  was  in  the  hour  before  the  sunrise? 
A  gray,  thin  mist  clung  to  the  earth.  Through  it  they 
looked  at  each  other's  pale  faces,  soberly. 

"  You  must  get  the  seed  in  as  soon  as  you  can,  after 
I'm  gone,"  said  the  husband. 

"  Yes,"  she  promised,  "  we  won't  lose  a  minute." 

"  And  I  think  you  and  Jean-Pierre  can  manage  to 
nail  in  the  window-frame  when  it  comes.  I  thought  I'd 
be  able  to  do  that  myself." 

"  Yes,  Jean-Pierre  and  I  can  do  it." 

"  You'd  better  get  my  kit  and  everything  ready  for 
me  to  leave,"  he  said,  drinking  the  last  of  the  coffee 
and  setting  his  hand  again  to  the  rake. 

They  had  reckoned  that  he  would  need  to  leave  the 
house  at  ten  o'clock  if  he  were  to  make  the  long  tramp 
to  Noyon  in  time  for  the  train.  At  a  quarter  of  ten  he 
stopped,  and,  the  rake  still  tightly  held  in  his  hand, 
crossed  the  road.  His  knapsack,  blanket-roll,  all  the  va 
rious  brown  bags  and  musettes  were  waiting  for  him 
on  the  bench  hewn  from  a  tree-trunk  before  the  door. 
He  passed  them,  went  around  the  little  hut,  and  stepped 
into  the  garden. 

Between  the  heaped-up  lines  of  rubble,  the  big 
rectangle  of  well-tilled  earth  lay  clean  and  brown  and 
level.  And  on  it,  up  and  down,  were  four,  long,  straight 
lines  of  pale  green.  The  peas  were  up.  He  was  to  see 
that  before  he  went  back. 

He  stooped  over  them.  Some  of  them  were  still 
bowed  double  with  the  effort  of  thrusting  themselves  up 


THE  PERMISSIONNAIRE  59 

against  the  encumbering  earth.  He  felt  their  effort  in 
the  muscles  of  his  own  back.  But  others,  only  a  few 
hours  older,  were  already  straightening  themselves 
blithely  to  reach  up  to  the  sun  and  warmth.  .This  also 
he  felt — in  his  heart.  Under  the  intent  gaze  of  the  gar 
dener,  the  vigorous  little  plants  seemed  to  be  vibrating 
with  life.  His  eyes  were  filled  with  it.  He  turned  away 
and  went  back  to  the  open  door  of  the  hut  His  wife, 
very  pale,  stood  there,  silent.  He  heaved  up  his  knap 
sack,  adjusted  his  blanket-roll  and  musettes,  and  drew  a 
long  breath. 

"  Good-bye,  Paulette,"  he  said,  kissing  her  on  both 
cheeks,  the  dreadful  long  kiss  which  may  be  the  last. 

"  I  will — I  will  take  care  of  things  here,"  she  said, 
her  voice  dying  away  in  her  throat. 

He  kissed  his  children,  he  stooped  low  to  kiss  the  little 
foster-child.  He  looked  once  more  across  at  the  field, 
not  yet  seeded.  Then  he  started  back  to  the  trenches. 

He  had  gone  but  a  few  steps  when  he  stopped  short 
and  came  back  hurriedly.  The  rake  was  still  in  his  hand. 
He  had  forgotten  his  gun. 


VIGNETTES  FROM   LIFE  AT  THE 
REAR 


I  WAS  tucking  the  children  into  bed  after  their  bath,  my 
rosy,  romping,  noisy  children,  when  "  le  soldat  Des- 
champs  "  was  announced.  Deschamps  is  the  man  from 
the  north  of  France,  who  had  been  a  coal-miner  before 
the  war,  the  man  whose  wife  and  little  boy  are  still  "  up 
there,"  the  man  who  has  not  seen  his  family  since  he 
kissed  them  the  fourth  of  August  three  years  ago. 

A  veil  seemed  to  drop  between  me  and  the  faces  of 
my  rosy,  romping,  noisy  children.  .  .  . 

I  went  slowly  along  the  hall  to  our  living-room.  Yes 
there  he  was,  poor  Deschamps,  the  big,  powerfully  built 
fellow,  a  little  thinner,  a  little  more  gaunt,  a  little 
whiter  than  when  I  had  seen  him  last,  although  that  was 
only  a  week  ago.  He  rose  up,  very  tall  in  his  worn  gray- 
blue  uniform,  not  so  neatly  brushed  as  it  had  been,  and 
put  out  a  flaccid  hand.  "  Bonsoir,  madame  .  .  .  excuse 
me  for  coming  again  so  soon.  I  know  I  ought  not  to 
take  your  time.  But  when  we  are  allowed  to  go  out 
..  .  .  where  shall  I  go?  I  know  so  few  people  in 
Paris  "...  as  though  one  would  not  be  willing  to  give 
time  when  there  is  so  tragically  nothing  else  to  give  him ! 

60 


VIGNETTES  FROM  LIFE  AT  THE  REAR       61 

I  say  something  cordial,  take  up  my  sewing,  and  set 
tle  myself  for  what  I  know  is  coming.  Poor  Deschamps ! 
He  needs  only  a  word  or  two  of  sympathy  when  out  he 
pours  it  all  in  a  rush,  the  heartsick  desolation  of  the  up 
rooted  exile,  the  disintegrating  misery  of  the  home-loving 
man  without  a  home.  Of  late,  alas!  it  does  not  come  out 
very  coherently.  "  You  see,  madame,  we  were  so  well 
off  there.  What  could  a  man  ask  for  more?  My  day 
in  the  mine  began  at  four  in  the  morning,  but  I  was  free 
at  two  in  the  afternoon,  and  I  am  very  strong,  as  you 
see,  so  that  I  could  go  on  working  out  of  doors  as  long 
as  the  daylight  lasted.  We  had  our  own  house  paid  for, 
our  own !  And  a  big,  big  garden.  I  earned  ten  francs  a 
day  cash  in  the  mines,  and  we  almost  lived  out  of  our 
garden,  so  we  were  saving  all  the  time.  Our  boy  was 
to  have  a  good  schooling.  Perhaps,  we  thought,  he 
might  be  like  Pasteur.  You  know  his  father  was  a 
simple  tanner.  My  wife  never  had  to  work  for  others, 
never!  She  could  stay  there  and  have  everything  clean 
and  pleasant  and  take  care  of  the  boy.  We  were  so 
happy  and  always  well.  .  .  .  We  both  worked  in  the 
garden,  and  people  who  garden  are  never  sick.  And  al 
ways  contented.  And  our  garden  .  .  .  you  ought  to 
see  it  ...  all  the  potatoes  we  could  eat  I  raised  there, 
and  early  ones  too!  And  all  the  cabbages  and  some  to 
sell.  The  coal  company  sold  us  cheap  all  the  manure  we 
wanted  from  their  stables,  and  I  could  make  the  land  as 
rich,  as  rich!  Such  early  vegetables!  Better  than  any 
you  can  buy  in  the  towns.  And  the  winter  ones  .  .  . 


62  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

you  should  see  how  we  protect  our  cabbages  in  the  win 
ter.  .   .   ." 

The  monologue  has  carried  the  big  fellow  out  of  his 
chair  now.  He  is  grasping  an  imaginary  spade,  a  heap 
of  imaginary  cabbages  by  his  side.  "  So  .  .  .we 
sprinkle  sand  first,  and  then  cabbages  all  laid  so  . 
you  understand.  ..."  The  voice  goes  on  and  on,  al 
most  the  voice  of  a  person  hypnotized. 

I  lose  my  perception  of  what  he  is  saying  as  I  gaze 
at  his  sunken  eyes  fixed  on  homely,  much-loved  scenes 
I  cannot  see. 

"  The  best  place  for  the  carrots  was  the  sloping  bit  of 
ground  near  the  big  oak.  .  .  . "  He  sees  it,  his  big  oak, 
there  before  him.  He  makes  me  see  it,  and  what  it 
meant  to  him.  This  was  the  man  whom  the  twentieth 
century  forced  to  march  away,  to  kill,  and  be  killed. 

" .  .  .  And  little  Raoul  used  to  help;  yes,  with  his  little 
foands  he  would  pat  down  the  sand  and  laugh  to  see  his 
iinger-marks." 

The  voice  stops  abruptly.  In  the  resultant  silence  I 
move  uneasily  ...  I  find  Deschamps'  talk  heartbreaking 
enough,  but  his  silences  terrify  me.  I  try  to  arouse  him 
from  his  bleak  brooding  reverie.  .  .  . 

"  You  had  hares  too,  didn't  you,  and  hens,  and  a 
pig  .  .  .  ?  That  must  have  helped  out  with  the  living." 

He  comes  to  himself  with  a  start.  "  Oh,  it  was  my 
wife  who  kept  the  animals.  She  has  such  a  hand  for 
making  them  thrive.  They  were  like  her  other  children. 
Those  little  chicks,  they  never  died,  always  prospered, 


VIGNETTES  FROM  LIFE  AT  THE  REAR       63 

grew  so  fat.  We  always  had  one  or  two  to  sell  when  she 
went  to  town  to  market.  Angele  used  to  dress  them  her 
self,  so  that  we  could  have  the  feathers.  Then  she  put 
them  in  one  of  the  neat  baskets  she  made  from  the  willow 
sprouts  on  the  side  of  our  little  stream,  with  a  clean 
white  cloth  over  them,  as  clean  as  her  neckerchief. 
Angele  is  as  neat  as  a  nun,  always.  Our  house  shone 
with  cleanness  .  .  . "  He  breaks  off  abruptly.  "  I  have 
shown  you  the  photograph  of  Angele  and  Raoul,  haven't 
I,  madame  ?  " 

I  hold  out  my  hand  and  gaze  again,  as  I  have  so  many 
times  before,  into  the  quiet  eyes  of  the  young  peasant 
woman  with  the  sturdy  little  boy  at  her  side.  "  She  is 
very  pretty,  your  wife,"  I  say,  "  and  your  little  boy 
looks  so  strong  and  vigorous/' 

"  I  hear,"  he  said  with  a  great  heave  of  his  broad 
chest,  now  so  sunken,  "  that  the  Boches  have  taken  all 
the  livestock  away  from  the  owners,  all  the  hens  and  pigs 
and  hares,  and  sent  them  to  Germany.  Perhaps  Raoul 
and  Angele  have  not  enough  to  eat  .  .  .  perhaps  there  is 
even  no  house  there  now  ...  a  cousin  of  mine  saw  a 
refugee  from  his  own  region  .  .  .  who  had  seen  the 
place  where  his  house  had  been !  ...  it  had  been  shelled, 
there  was  ..."  His  mouth  sets  hard  in  an  angry  line 
of  horror. 

I  bestir  myself.  This  is  the  sort  of  talk  Deschamps 
must  not  be  allowed. 

"  M.  Deschamps,"  I  say,  "  I  shall  be  writing  soon  to 
that  group  of  American  friends  who  gave  the  money  for 


64  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

your  articulated  arm.  Have  you  any  message  to  send 
them?  I  think  they  are  planning  to  send  some  more 
money  to  help  you.  .  .  ." 

He  waves  it  away  with  a  great  gesture.  "  Money 
can't  do  anything  for  me,"  he  says  bitterly,  adding 
quickly :  "  Not  of  course  that  I  am  not  very,  very  grate 
ful  for  the  so-costly  artificial  arm.  It  means  I  can  earn 
their  living  again,  if  ever  Angele  ..." 

I  break  in  once  more :  "  But  I  promised  them  a  state 
ment  of  all  your  case,  you  know,  the  dates  and 
places  and  everything.  Could  you  just  run  over  them 
again  .  .  .?" 

But  I  do  not  listen  as  he  goes  wearily  over  the  old 
story  as  familiar  to  me  now  as  to  him :  mobilized  the 
first  day,  was  in  the  Battle  of  the  Marne,  advanced  to 
B ,  was  wounded  there  in  the  leg,  taken  to  a  hos 
pital  in  an  American  ambulance,  cured,  returned  to  the 
trenches;  wounded  in  the  shoulder,  taken  to  the  hospital, 
cured,  returned  to  the  trenches  ...  all  this  time  with 
no  news  whatever  from  his  family,  knowing  that  his 
region  was  occupied  by  the  invaders,  hearing  stories  of 
how  the  women  and  children  were  treated.  .  .  .  Fought 
during  the  winter  of  1914-15,  wounded  in  three  places  in 
June,  1915,  taken  to  the  hospital  where  his  arm  was  am 
putated.  While  there,  heard  indirectly  that  his  wife  and 
child  were  still  alive.  As  soon  as  the  articulated  arm 
(paid  for  out  of  my  blessed  fund  of  American  money) 
allowed  him  to  work,  he  had  begun  to  learn  the  tinner's 
trade,  since  a  one-armed  man  could  no  longer  be  a  miner. 


VIGNETTES  FROM  LIFE  AT  THE  REAR        65 

Now  he  had  passed  his  apprenticeship  and  could  soon  be 
ready  to  earn  his  living. 

I  knew  all  this  laborious,  heroic,  commonplace  story 
already,  and  looked  through  it  at  the  hospital  pallor  on 
the  haggard  face,  at  the  dreadful  soft  whiteness  of  the 
hands  so  obviously  meant  to  be  hard  and  brown,  at  the 
slack  looseness  of  the  great  frame,  at  a  man  on  the  point 
of  losing  his  desire  to  live.  .  .  . 

"  What  use  is  it  to  earn  money  when  not  a  cent  can 
I  send  to  them  up  there,  when  I  can  hear  nothing  from 
Angele  beyond  that  line  on  a  post-card  once  in  three 
months?  Madame,  you  have  education,  why  will  they 
not  allow  a  wife  to  write  to  her  husband?  " 

I  have  only  the  old  answer  to  the  old  question :  "  We 
suppose  they  are  afraid  of  spies,  of  people  sending  in 
formation  to  France." 

"But  why  do  they  keep  Angele  there?  Why  don't 
they  let  women  go  to  their  husbands?  What  harm  can 
that  do  ?  Why  do  they  make  it  a  hell  on  earth  for  them 
and  then  refuse  to  let  them  go?  " 

I  had  for  this  only  the  usual  murmur :  "  A  few  are 
allowed  to  come  away." 

He  struck  his  hands  together.  "  So  few !  When  they 
last  said  they  would  allow  some  women  and  children  to 
come  to  France,  only  a  fifteenth  part  of  those  who  asked 
for  leave  were  allowed  to  come.  Why?  Why?  What 
has  Angele  to  do  with  the  war  ?  " 

He  gets  up  for  the  restless  pacing  about  our  little 
living-room  which  always  ends  his  visits.  "  I  think  I 


66  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

shall  go  mad,  madame.  I  am  there  in  the  hospital,  two 
hundred  of  us  in  one  great  room  .  .  .  oh,  they  are 
kind  enough  to  us,  we  have  enough  to  eat.  But  we  are 
not  children.  It  is  not  enough  to  have  food  and  a  roof. 
Two  hundred  men  there  .  .  .  what  a  life  .  .  .  for 
fourteen  months !  Nothing  to  work  for,  nothing  to  live 
for,  no  home,  no  family,  not  even  a  chance  to  go  back  to 
the  trenches.  The  other  men  drink  as  much  as  they  can 
get  money  for.  I  never  drank  in  my  life.  Madame,  do 
you  suppose  it  would  make  me  sleep  to  drink  ?  " 

"  See  here,  M.  Deschamps,"  I  say,  moving  to  my  desk, 
"  I  will  write  again  to  the  Spanish  Embassy.  I  will  tell 
them  again  about  Angele  and  Raoul,  they  will  send  the 
request  to  the  German  authorities  in  your  town  .  .  . 
perhaps  this  time  .  .  ."  It  is  a  perilous  stimulant  to 
administer  to  a  sick  heart,  but  what  other  have  I  ?  So  I 
sit,  swallowing  the  lump  in  my  throat,  and  once  more 
make  out  the  application  which  never  has  any  result. 

"  There,"  I  say,  putting  it  into  an  envelope  with  hands 
that  are  not  very  steady — "  there,  my  friend,  you  mail 
that.  And  now  you  must  go,  or  the  night-nurse  will 
scold  you  for  being  late." 

He  reaches  for  his  cap,  his  old  shabby  cap  with  the 
bullet  hole  through  it,  and  stands  fumbling  with  it,  his 
head  hanging.  He  towers  above  me,  gaunt,  powerful, 
as  pitiably  defenseless  as  any  little  child.  I  wink  back  the 
tears  which  threaten  to  come,  shake  his  hand  hard,  and 
tell  him  to  be  sure  to  come  again  the  next  time  he  has 
the  "  cafard."  He  nods  absently  and  shuffles  to  the  door. 


VIGNETTES  FROM  LIFE  AT  THE  REAR        67 

"  You  will  pardon  me,  madame  .  .  .  but  when  I  think 
that  my  little  Raoul  has  perhaps  not  enough  to  eat,  and 
I  am  not  .  .  . " 

He  has  gone  his  lonely  way  to  the  hospital  bed  which 
is  all  he  has  for  home.  I  go  back  to  the  cool  dark  bed 
room  and  look  down  at  my  sleeping  children. 

There  is  no  reason  for  it  ...  why  should  I  feel 
guilty  to  see  them  rosy  and  safe? 

ii 

When  I  come  in  from  the  street,  very  tired,  after  a 
talk  with  a  war-widow  about  ways  and  means  for  taking 
care  of  her  children,  I  find  him  in  the  living-room,  the 
•hearty,  broad-faced  fellow,  smiling,  giving  me  his  great, 
,farm-laborer's  hand,  thanking  me  for  the  last  package 
of  goodies  ...  as  though  he  had  not  just  come 

through  the  inferno  of  the  attack  at  M .     ff  The 

package  never  arrived  at  a  better  moment,"  he  said  gaily. 
"  We  had  been  on  awfully  short  rations  for  three  days 
.  .  .  in  a  shell-hole,  you  know."  I  know  that  I  do  not 
know  it  all,  but  it  is  futile  to  try  to  draw  fine  distinctions 
with  Groissard,  cheeriest  and  simplest  of  "permission- 
naires,"  always  the  same,  always  open-faced  and  clear- 
eyed,  always  emanating  quiet  confidence  and  always  see 
ing  it  about  him.  If  there  are  any  tired  or  disheartened 
or  apprehensive  or  perplexed  soldiers  in  the  army,  they 
pass  unperceived  of  Groissard's  honest  eyes.  His  com 
panions  are  all  ...  to  hear  him  talk  ...  as  brave, 
as  untroubled,  as  single-hearted  as  he.  They  never  com- 


68  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

plain — that  is,  if  Groissard's  account  of  them  is  accurate : 
they  think  as  little  as  possible  about  anything  but  food 
and  packages  from  the  rear  and  jokes.  And  when  they 
do  think,  it  is  always  only  to  be  sure  that  everybody  must 
hold  hard  and  stick  it  out  quite  to  the  end.  As  long  as 
"  they  "  are  on  French  soil,  of  course  there  is  nothing 
else  for  an  honest  Frenchman  to  do.  And  they  are  all 
honest  Frenchmen  around  Groissard. 

"  Oh  yes,  madame,"  he  says  simply,  balancing  my  little 
boy  on  his  knee,  "the  spirit  of  the  army  is  excellent. 
Why  shouldn't  it  be?  We're  going  to  get  them,  you 
know.  And  you  ought  to  see  our  regimental  fireless 
cookers  now.  They're  great!  The  cooks  fill  them  up 
at  the  kitchen  at  the  rear,  quite  out  of  range,  you  know, 
where  there's  no  danger  of  a  shell  upsetting  the  pots, 
and  then  the  men  bring  the  big  fireless  cookers  up  on 
mitrailleuse  carriages  that  can  go  anywhere.  They  worm 
their  way  clear  up  to  us  in  the  first-line  trenches,  and  our 
ragout  is  piping  hot.  It's  like  sitting  down  to  the  table 
at  the  farm  at  home.  There's  nothing  so  good  for  the 
spirit  of  an  army  as  hot  rasta.  And  your  packages,  the 
packages  madame  sends  with  the  money  from  her  Amer 
ican  friends  .  .  .  why,  the  days  when  they  come  it's 
like  being  a  kid  again,  and  having  a  birthday!  And 
then  we  get  two  days  out  of  five  for  rest  at  the  rear,  you 
know,  except  when  there  is  a  very  big  attack  going  on. 
We're  not  so  badly  off  at  all !  " 

"  During  those  big  attacks  aren't  you  sometimes  cut 
off  from  food  supplies  ?  "  I  ask. 


VIGNETTES  FROM  LIFE  AT  THE  REAR        69 

"  Oh,  not  so  often.  The  longest  one  was  three  days 
and  four  nights,  and  we  had  our  emergency  rations  for 
half  that  time."  He  tosses  my  fat  little  son  up  in  the 
air  and  catches  him  deftly  in  his  great  farm  laborer's 
hands,  butcher's  hands.  The  children  adore  Groissard, 
and  his  furloughs  are  festivals  for  them.  As  for  me,  I 
have  an  endless  curiosity  about  him.  I  can  never  be  done 
with  questioning  him,  with  trying  to  find  out  what  is 
underneath  his  good-natured  acceptance  of  the  present 
insane  scheme  of  the  universe;  I  sometimes  descend  to 
banalities,  the  foolish  questions  schoolgirls  ask.  I  lower 
my  voice :  "  Groissard,  did  you  ever — have  you  ever  had 
to  ...  I  don't  mean  firing  off  your  rifle  at  a  distant 
crowd,  I  mean  in  close  quarters  .  .  .  ?  " 

"Have  I  killed  many  Boches,  you  mean,  madame?" 
he  breaks  through  my  mincing,  twentieth-century  false- 
modesty  about  naming  a  fact  I  accept  .  .  .  since  I 
accept  Groissard !  "  Oh  yes,  a  good  many.  We  fought 
all  over  Mort-Homme,  you  know;  and  we  were  in  the 
last  attack  on  Hill  304.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  hand- 
to-hand  work  there,  of  course."  He  turns  the  delighted 
baby  upside  down  and  right-side  up,  and  smiles  sunnily 
at  the  resultant  shrieks  of  mirth. 

I  try  again :  "  Do  you  see  many  prisoners,  Groissard  ?  " 
He  is  always  ready  to  answer  questions,  although  he 
cannot  understand  my  interest  in  such  commonplace  de 
tails. 

"  Yes  indeed,  madame,  ever  so  many.  Just  the  day 
before  this  '  permission '  began,  day  before  yesterday  it 


70  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

was,  we  brought  in  a  squad  of  twenty  from  a  short 
section  of  trench  we  had  taken.  I'm  not  likely  to  forget 
them  for  one  while !  Our  cook,  who  is  from  the  South 
and  loses  his  head  easily,  went  and  cooked  up  for  them 
at  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  every  last  beefsteak  we 
were  going  to  have  for  dinner  that  night.  We  didn't 
have  a  thing  but  beans  left!  But  we  didn't  grumble  very 
much,  either.  They  were  the  coldest,  hungriest-looking 
lot  you  ever  saw.  It  did  your  heart  good  to  see  the  way 
they  got  around  those  beefsteaks!  " 

I  gaze  at  him  baffled.  "  But,  Groissard,  you  kill  them. 
You  are  there  to  kill  them !  What  can  you  care  whether 
they  have  beefsteaks  or  not." 

He  stops  playing  with  the  baby  to  look  at  me,  round- 
eyed  with  astonishment.  "  I'm  not  there  to  kill  pris 
oners!  "  he  says,  with  an  unanswerable  simplicity.  And 
I  lose  myself  again  in  a  maze  of  conjecture  and  specu 
lation. 

in 

"  Oh,  it's  got  to  stop,  that's  all ;  it's  too  sickening,  too 
imbecile,  too  monstrous !  " 

It  is  the  brancardier  talking,  the  one  who  had  been  a 
prosperous  sugar-broker  before  the  war,  and  who  has 
been  a  first-line  stretcher-carrier  since  the  beginning  of 
the  war.  If  you  think  you  have  any  idea  what  it  has 
meant  to  be  first-line  stretcher-carrier  for  three  years, 
you  have  only  to  hear  Paul  Arbagnan  talk  for  five  min 
utes  to  guess  at  the  extent  of  your  ignorance.  He  is 


VIGNETTES  FROM  LIFE  AT  THE  REAR        71 

just  back  from  the  front,  on  a  twenty-four  hours'  fur 
lough,  granted  after  a  terrible  fortnight  under  incessant 
fire.  He  sits  in  the  midst  of  our  family  group,  beside 
his  older  brother,  the  despatch-carrier,  also  here  "  en 
permission"  The  brother  was  before  the  war  a  pro 
fessor  of  political  economy.  From  the  worn  blue 
uniforms  of  both  brothers  swings  the  croix  de  guerre 
gloriously.  The  younger  one's  face  is  thin  and  very 
brown,  his  blue  eyes  look  out  at  us  with  an  irritable 
flicker.  The  mud  dried  on  his  clumsy  boots  crumbles 
off  in  great  flakes  on  my  polished  floor.  His  hard,  grimy 
hand  with  broken  nails  (which  had  been  so  fine  and 
well-kept  before  the  war)  teases  and  pulls  at  his  close- 
clipped  hair,  now  as  grizzled  with  silver  as  that  of  a  man 
twenty  years  his  senior. 

A  harmless  elderly  relative  murmurs  something  senti 
mental  about  the  mud  on  the  floor  being  sacred  earth,  like 
that  the  Crusaders  brought  back  from  Jerusalem,  and  the 
inevitable  explosion  takes  place.  "  Oh,  you  people  at  the 
rear,  your  silly  chatter  about  heroism  and  holy  causes! 
You  don't  know  what  you  are  talking  about.  There 
ought  to  be  a  law  to  make  all  the  civilian  population  keep 
silence  about  the  war.  You  have  no  idea,  not  the  faintest 
glimmering  of  a  notion  of  what  life  is  at  the  front!  If 
you  had  .  .  .  !  My  croix  de  guerre!  Don't  you  sup 
pose  I  would  give  it  back  ten  times  over  if  I  could  forget 
what  I  feel  deliberately  to  leave  a  mortally  wounded  man 
to  die  because  I  have  orders  to  select  (if  my  stretcher 
has  not  room  enough  for  all)  only  those  who  may  get 


72  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

well  enough  to  go  back  and  fight  again.  Without  having 
known  what  it  is,  you've  no  right  to  say  a  word,  to  have 
an  opinion  or  a  thought  about  it,  you  safe,  clean,  soft, 
gossiping  people  at  the  rear!  The  dirt  .  .  .  !  Why, 
the  bath  I  had  this  morning  here  in  Paris  was  the  first 
time  I  have  taken  my  clothes  off,  except  to  hunt  for 
vermin,  for  twenty-two  days.  Do  you  know  what  your 
body  is  like,  what  your  clothes  are  like,  what  your  socks 
are  like,  when  you  have  lived  and  cooked  and  sweat  and 
slept  and  bled  in  them  for  twenty-two  days?  Of  course 
you  don't.  No  civilized  being  does.  And  until  you  do, 
less  talk  from  you  about  the  heroism  of  the  soldier-! 
Filth,  that's  what  war  is,  and  dirty  diseases  lying  in 
wait  for  decent  men.  And  cold,  cold  day  and  night,  cold 
that  brutalizes,  that  degenerates  you  till  you  would  sell 
your  soul,  your  mother's  soul  to  be  warm  again.  And 
mud,  not  clean  country  mud,  but  filth,  and  up  to  your  eyes 
and  beyond,  horrible  infected  mud  splashing  upon  the 
emergency  bandage  you  are  trying  to  put  on  a  wound. 
And  the  wounded  .  .  .  see  here,  when  the  newspapers 
speak  complacently  of  the  superb  artillery  preparation 
which  after  three  days  of  cannon-duel  silences  the 
enemy's  batteries,  do  you  know  what  that  means  to  me  ? 
It  means  I  am  squatting  all  day  in  an  underground 
shelter,  with  twenty  wounded,  the  German  shells  falling 
one  a  minute  over  my  head,  my  supplies  of  bandages 
gone,  my  anaesthetics  gone,  no  cotton,  not  even  a  cup  of 
water  left.  To  see  them  die  there,  begging  for  help, 
calling  for  their  mothers  ...  to  crouch  there  helpless, 


VIGNETTES  FROM  LIFE  AT  THE  REAR        73 

all  day  long,  hearing  the  shells  falling,  and  wondering 
which  one  will  come  through  the  roof — oh,  you  have 
plenty  of  time  to  think  the  whole  proposition  over,  the 
business  you're  in.  You  have  time,  let  me  tell  you,  to 
have  your  own  opinion  of  the  imbecility  of  setting  one 
highly  civilized  man  down  in  filth  and  degradation  to 
shoot  at  others.  When  some  idiot  of  a  journalist,  re 
porting  the  war,  speaks  of  the  warlike  ardor  of  the  men, 
how  it  is  difficult  to  restrain  them  until  the  order  to 
charge  is  given  .  .  .  when  we  read  such  paragraphs  in 
the  papers  ...  if  you  could  hear  the  snarl  that  goes 
up !  We  '  charge  '  when  the  word  of  command  is  given, 
yes,  because  we  know  nothing  better  to  do,  but  ..." 

The  sentimental  aunt  breaks  in  resolutely :  "  Of  course, 
it's  very  noble  of  you,  Paul;  the  fact  is  simply  that  you 
don't  or  won't  recognize  your  own  courage." 

"  Courage,  nonsense !  A  rat  in  a  hole,  surrounded  by 
other  rats  putrefying  .  .  .  that's  what  I  am  in  my 
underground  shelter!  What  else  can  I  do?  What  else 
can  we  any  of  us  do?  We  can't  get  away!  There 
^wouldn't  be  anywhere  to  go  if  we  did!  But  when  I 
ihink  of  the  people  at  the  rear,  how  they  don't  know, 
will  never  know,  the  sickening  hours  the  troops  live 
through.  See  here!  No  sensitive,  civilized  being  can 
forget  it  if  he  has  only  once  been  wholly  filthy,  wholly 
bestial  .  .  ,  and  we  have  been  that,  time  without  num 
ber.  When  I  come  back  to  Paris  on  furlough  and  look 
at  the  crowds  in  the  Paris  streets,  the  old  men  with  white 
collars,  and  clean  skins,  the  women  with  curled  hair  and 


74  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

silk  stockings,  I  could  kill  them,  when  I  think  that  they 
will  have  a  voice  in  the  future,  will  affect  what  will  be 
done  hereafter  about  war  ..." 

"  Time  for  your  train,  Paul/'  warns  the  elder  brother 
soberly. 

The  man  who  had  been  reviling  the  life  of  a  soldier 
springs  instantly  to  his  feet  and  looks  anxiously  at  his 
watch.  He  claps  on  his  blue  steel  casque. 

We  try  to  give  a  light  touch  to  the  last  of  his  stay. 
"  How  medieval  those  helmets  make  you  look !  " 

He  is  not  to  be  distracted.  "  Put  it  further  back, 
stone-age,  cannibalistic,"  he  cries  bitterly,  marching  out 
hurriedly  so  that  he  may  be  promptly  at  his  task. 

The  elder  brother  comes  back  from  the  door,  a  dim, 
patient  smile  on  his  lips.  "  Oh,  Paul,  poor  boy !  He 
takes  it  hard !  He  takes  it  hard !  "  he  murmurs.  "  Who 
would  think  to  hear  him  that  he  is  accounted  the  best 
brancardier  in  his  section?  He  is  the  one  always  sent 
out  to  do  the  impossible,  and  he  always  goes,  silently, 
and  does  it.  After  this  last  engagement,  he  had  shown 
such  bravoure,  they  wanted  to  have  him  cited  again,  to 
give  him  the  palms  to  wear  above  his  croix.  But  he  said 
he  had  had  his  share,  that  others  had  done  as  much  as 
he,  and  he  persuaded  them  to  give  the  croix  to  one  of 
the  other  brancardiers,  a  stevedore  from  Marseilles  who 
can't  read  or  write.  You  are  perhaps  not  surprised  to 
know  that  he  is  adored  by  his  comrades." 

"But  is  it  true  ...  all  he  says?"  I  ask,  shivering 
a  little. 


VIGNETTES  FROM  LIFE  AT  THE  REAR        75 

"  Oh  yes,  true  enough,  and  more  than  he  says  or  any 
one  can  ever  say.  But,  but  .  .  ."  He  searches  for 
a  metaphor  and  finds  it  with  a  smile.  "  See,  Paul  is  like 
a  man  with  a  fearful  toothache !  He  can't  think  of  any 
thing  else.  But  that  doesn't  mean  there  isn't  anything 
else." 

I  ask  him :  "  But  you,  who  have  been  through  all  that 
Paul  sees,  what  do  you  find,  besides  ?  "  He  hesitates, 
smiling  no  longer,  and  finally  brings  out  in  a  low  tone : 
"  When  a  mother  gives  birth  to  a  child,  she  suffers, 
suffers  horribly.  Perhaps  all  the  world  is  now  trying  to 
give  birth  to  a  new  idea,  which  we  have  talked  of,  but 
never  felt  before;  the  idea  that  all  of  us,  each  of  us,  is 
responsible  for  what  happens  to  all,  to  each,  that  we  must 
stick  together  for  good  .  .  ."  He  picks  up  his  steel 
helmet,  and  looks  at  us  with  his  dim,  patient,  indomitable 
smile.  "  It  is  like  a  little  new  baby  in  more  ways  than 
one,  that  new  idea.  It  has  cost  us  such  agony;  and  it 
is  so  small,  so  weak,  so  needing  all  our  protection  .  .  . 
and  then  also,  because  ..."  his  sunken  eyes  are  pro 
phetic,  "  because  it  is  alive,  because  it  will  grow !  " 

IV 

I  glance  at  my  calendar  &  dismay.  Is  it  possible  that 
three  months  have  gone,  and  that  it  is  time  for  Amieux 
to  have  another  "  permission  "  ?  How  long  the  week  of 
his  furlough  always  seems,  how  the  three  months  between 
race  away!  Of  course  we  have  the  greatest  regard  for 
A.mieux.  We  feel  that  his  uniform  alone  (he  is  a 


76  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

chasseur  alpin  who  has  been  a  first-line  fighter  since  the 
Battle  of  the  Marne)  would  entitle  him  to  our  services, 
but  more  than  that,  his  personality  commands  our  respect, 
sound,  steady,  quiet  Amieux  whose  sturdy  body  is 
wounded  in  one  place  after  another,  who  is  repaired 
hastily  in  the  nearest  hospital  and  uncomplainingly  goes 
back  to  the  trenches,  his  sleeve  decorated  with  another 
one  of  the  V-shaped  marks  which  denote  wounds.  The 
only  trouble  with  Amieux  as  a  household  hero  is  a  total 
dearth  of  subjects  of  conversation.  You  see,  he  is  a 
glass-blower  by  profession.  We  often  feel  that  if  we 
were  not  as  ignorant  of  glass-blowing  as  Amieux  is  of 
everything  else,  we  could  get  on  famously  with  him.  As 
it  is  .  .  . 

fe  Oh  bon  jour,  M.  Amieux,"  I  say,  jumping  to  my  feet, 
"  welcome  back  to  the  rear !  All  well?  " 

"  Yes,  madame,"  he  says  with  as  ponderous  an  em 
phasis  on  the  full-stop  as  that  of  any  taciturn  New  Eng 
land  farmer. 

"  Well,  has  it  been  hard,  the  last  three  months  ?  "  I 
ask. 

"  No,  madame." 

I  draw  a  long  breath. 

"  Do  the  packages  we  send,  the  chocolate,  the  cigarettes, 
the  soap — do  they  reach  you  promptly  ?  " 

"  Yes,  madame.    Thank  you,  madame." 

The  full-stop  is  more  overpowering  with  each  an 
swer. 

I  resort  to  more  chatter,  anything  to  fill  that  resound- 


VIGNETTES  FROM  LIFE  AT  THE  REAR        77 

ing  silence.  "  Here  we  have  been  so  busy !  So  many 
more  American  volunteers  are  coming  over  for  the  Am 
bulance  service,  my  husband  has  not  a  free  moment.  The 
children  never  see  him.  My  little  daughter  is  doing  well 
in  school.  She  begins  to  read  French  now.  Of  course 
the  little  son  doesn't  go  to  school,  but  he  is  learning  to 
speak  French  like  a  French  baby.  It  has  been  so  cold 
here.  There  has  been  so  little  coal.  You  must  have 
heard,  the  long  lines  waiting  to  get  coal  ..."  I  stop 
with  almost  a  shrug  of  exasperation.  As  well  talk  to 
a  basalt  statue  as  to  Amieux,  impassive,  his  rough  red 
hands  on  his  knees,  his  musette  swollen  with  all  the  mis 
cellaneous  junk  the  poilu  stuffs  into  that  nondescript 
receptacle,  his  cap  still  firmly  on  his  head  .  .  .  formal 
manners  are  not  specialties  of  Amieux.  And  then  I 
notice  that  one  leg  is  thrust  out,  very  stiff  and  straight, 
and  has  a  big  bulbous  swelling  which  speaks  of  a  bandage 
under  the  puttees. 

I  glance  at  it.  "  Rheumatism  ?  Too  much  water  in 
the  trenches  ?  " 

He  looks  down  at  it  without  a  flicker  on  his  face. 
"  No,  madame,  a  wound." 

"  Really?    How  did  it  happen  this  time?  " 

He  looks  faintly  bored.  They  always  hate  to  tell  how 
they  were  wounded.  "  Oh,  no  particular  way.  A  shell 
had  smashed  up  an  abri,  and  while  I  was  trying  to  pull 
my  captain  out  from  under  the  timbers  another  shell 
exploded  near  by." 

"  Did  you  save  the  captain  ?  " 


'78  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

"  Oh  yes.  He  was  banged  up  around  the  head.  He's 
all  right  now." 

"  Were  you  there  with  him  ?  How  did  it  happen  you 
weren't  buried  under  the  wreck  too  ?  " 

"  I  wasn't  there.  I  was  in  a  trench.  But  I  saw.  I 
knew  he  was  there." 

I  am  so  used  to  Amieux's  conversational  style  that  I 
manage  even  through  this  arid  narration  to  see  what  had 
happened.  "  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  left  the  trench 
and  went  out  under  shell-fire  to  rescue  your  captain! 
And  they  didn't  give  you  a  decoration!  It's  outrageous 
not  recognizing  such  bravery !  " 

He  shuffles  his  feet  and  looks  foolish.  "  The  captain 
wanted  to  have  me  cited  all  right.  He's  a  chic  type, 
but  I  said  he'd  better  not." 

"  Don't  you  want  the  crolx  de  guerre? "  I  cry, 
astounded  at  such  apathy  even  from  Amieux. 

"  Oh,  I  wouldn't  mind.     It's  my  mother." 

"  Don't  you  suppose  your  mother  would  love  to  have 
her  son  decorated  ?  "  I  feel  there  must  be  some  absurd 
misunderstanding  between  us,  the  man  seems  to  be  talking 
such  nonsense. 

"  Well,  you  see,  my  mother  .  .  .  my  only  brother 
was  killed  last  winter.  Maman  worries  a  good  deal  about 
me,  and  I  told  her,  just  so  she  could  sleep  quietly,  you 
know,  I  have  told  her  my  company  isn't  near  the  front  at 
all.  I  said  we  were  guarding  a  munitions  depot  at  the 
rear." 

"Well  ,        ."    I  am  still  at  a  loss. 


VIGNETTES  FROM  LIFE  AT  THE  REAR        79 

"  Well,  don't  you  see,  if  I  get  the  croix  de  guerre  for 
being  under  fire,  maman  would  get  to  worrying  again. 
So  I  told  my  captain  I'd  rather  he'd  give  it  to  one  of  the 
other  fellows." 


I  had  just  come  from  several  hours  spent  with  one  of 
the  war-blind,  one  of  those  among  the  educated,  unre- 
signed  war-blind,  who  see  too  clearly  with  the  eyes  of  their 
intelligence  what  has  happened  to  them.  I  had  been  with 
him,  looking  into  his  sightless  face,  pitting  my  strength 
against  the  bitterness  of  his  voice;  and  I  was  tired, 
tired  to  the  marrow  of  my  bones,  to  the  tip  of  every 
nerve. 

But  the  children  had  not  been  out  for  their  walk  and 
the  day  was  that  rare  thing  in  a  Paris  March,  a  sunshiny 
one,  not  to  be  wasted.  "  Come,  dears,"  I  told  them  as 
I  entered  the  apartment,  "  get  on  your  wraps.  We'll  all 
go  out  for  a  play  while  the  sun  is  still  high." 

I  walked  along  the  street  between  them,  my  little 
daughter  and  my  little  son,  their  warm  soft  hands  in 
mine.  The  sparrows  chattered  in  the  bare  trees  above 
us,  the  sparrows  who  even  in  this  keen  air  felt  the  coming 
of  spring  which  was  foretold  by  the  greening  of  the 
grass  in  the  public  squares.  My  children  chattered  inces 
santly,  like  the  sparrows.  Perhaps  they  felt  the  spring 
too.  I  did  not  want  to  feel  the  spring.  We  turned  away 
from  the  Seine  and  walked  on  one  side  of  the  open 
square  before  Notre  Dame. 


8o  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

"  Mother,  I  caught  my  ball  twenty-three  times  to-day 
without  missing." 

"  Muvver,  I  see  a  white  horse,  a  big  white  horsie !  " 

"  Mother,  do  you  like  arithmetic  as  well  as  history  ? 
/  don't." 

"  Muvver,  I  have  a  little  p'tend  doggie  here,  trotting 
after  me,  a  little  brown  p'tend  doggie." 

"  Mother,  O  mother,  let  me  tell  you  what  happened  at 
school  to-day,  during  recess !  " 

Through  the  half-heard  ripple  of  clear  little  voices, 
there  came  upon  me  one  of  those  thunder-claps  of  realiza 
tion  which,  since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  have  brought 
wiser  and  stronger  people  than  I  to  the  brink  of  insanity 
— realization  for  an  instant  (longer  than  an  instant  would 
carry  any  one  over  the  brink)  that  the  war  is  really  going 
on,  realization  of  what  the  war  really  means,  one  glimpse 
of  the  black  abyss.  I  felt  very  sick,  and  stood  still  for 
an  instant,  because  my  knees  shook  under  me.  .  .  . 

But  those  wiser  and  stronger  ones  had  not  little  chil 
dren  of  their  own  to  draw  them  away  from  that  black 
gulf.  ...  I  was  pulled  at  by  impatient  little  hands, 
lucid,  ineffably  pure  eyes  were  turned  up  to  mine,  the 
clear  little  voices  grew  louder,  "  Muvver,  muvver,  I'm 
losing  my  mitten !  " 

"  Mother,  why  are  you  standing  still  ?  This  isn't  a 
good  place  to  play!  There!  A  little  nearer  the  big- 
church  is  some  sand.  And  a  bench  for  you." 

How  could  I  go  on  this  everyday  commonplace  life, 
eating,  drinking,  sleeping,  caring  for  the  children,  cheer- 


VIGNETTES  FROM  LIFE  AT  THE  REAR        81 

ing  them  ...  in  such  a  wicked  and  imbecile  world! 
I  looked  up  and  down  the  bare,  sun-flooded  square.  All 
about  me  were  other  women,  caring  for  little  children. 
And  for  the  most  part,  those  other  women  were  in 
mourning.  But  they  were  there  under  that  cruel,  careless 
sunshine,  caring  for  their  children,  cheering  them.  .  .  . 

I  put  the  little  mitten  on;  I  walked  forward  to  the 
bench,  the  little  singing  voices  died  away  to  a  ripple 
again.  "  Oh,  this  is  fine !  See,  little  brother,  here  is  a 
cave  already.  Let  me  have  that  stick !  "  "  No,  me ! 
Me! " 

That  was  what  was  sounding  in  my  ears.  But  what 
I  heard  was  a  muffled  voice  saying  scornfully :  "  Re 
education  .  .  .  courage,  taking  up  our  lives  again 
...  oh  yes,  whatever  you  please  to  imagine  to  distract 
our  attention !  But  we  are  finished  men,  done  for  .  .  . 
lost!" 

My  children  played  before  me  in  the  sunshine,  but 
what  I  saw  were  the  scarred,  mutilated,  sightless  faces 
of  young  men  in  their  prime,  with  long  lives  of  darkness 
before  them.  And  as  I  sat  there,  then,  that  instant,  other 
young  men  in  their  prime  were  being  blinded,  were  being 
mutilated  for  life. 

My  fatigue  deepened  till  it  was  like  lead  upon  me. 
Under  it  I  was  cold.  The  sun  did  not  warm  me.  It  fell 
like  a  mockery  upon  a  race  gone  mad,  upon  a  world 
bankrupt  in  hope.  Yes,  what  we  suffered  was  not  the 
worst,  not  even  what  they  suffered,  the  men  at  the  front; 
what  was  worst  was  the  fact  that  the  meaning  of  it  all 


82  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

was  hopelessness,  was  the  end,  a  black  end  to  all  we 
had  looked  forward  to,  striven  for  ...  paralysis, 
death  in  life.  And  an  indifferent  sun  shining  down  on 
it,  as  it  had  on  our  illusions. 

After  a  time  the  children  tired  of  sand.  "  Mother, 
mayn't  we  go  in  the  big  church  ?  You  never  have  taken 
us  inside.  What  does  it  look  like  ?  " 

Their  restless  upspringing  life  thrust  my  paralysis  aside 
as  an  upspringing  young  tree  cleaves  the  boulder  which 
would  hamper  it.  We  pushed  open  the  heavy  leather 
door  and  stepped  into  the  huge  cavern,  our  eyes  so  full 
of  the  glare  of  the  sunshine  that,  as  we  walked  forward 
up  the  nave,  we  could  see  nothing  but  velvety  darkness, 
faintly  scented  with  mold  and  incense. 

The  silence  was  so  intense  that  I  could  hear  my  sore, 
angry  heart  beating  furiously  in  my  breast.  .  .  . 

Further  along  before  us,  where  rich-colored  patches 
lay,  on  the  stone  pavement,  there  was  the  light  from 
the  great  rose-windows.  .  .  .  We  stood  there  now,  our 
eyes  slowly  clearing,  the  blackness  slowly  fading  out  into 
twilight,  to  a  sweet,  clear  translucent  dimness  which  hid 
nothing. 

Silence,  long,  shadowy  veiled  aisles,  hushed  im 
mensity.  .  .  . 

A  great  calm  hand  seemed  laid  on  my  shoulder,  so 
that  my  fever  sank,  my  pulses  were  quieted.  I  stood 
motionless,  feeling  slowly  pulsating  through  me  a  vaster 
rhythm  than  the  throbbing  irregularity  of  my  own  doubt- 


VIGNETTES  FROM  LIFE  AT  THE  REAR       83 

ing  heart.  A  great  soundless  benediction  was  breathed 
upon  me  out  of  the  man-wrought  beauty  around  and 
above  me. 

Up,  up,  up,  I  raised  my  eyes,  following  the  soaring  of 
the  many-columned  pillars,  and  something  in  my  heart 
burst  its  leaden  bonds  and  soared  up  out  of  my 
breast.  .  .  . 

Yes,  here  was  beauty,  here  was  that  beauty  I  had  for 
gotten  and  denied  .  .  .  and  men  had  made  it!  It  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  glare  of  the  indifferent  sun,  with 
the  callous  face  of  our  calamity.  Men  had  made  this 
beauty,  imperfect,  warring,  doubting,  suffering,  sinning 
men  had  upreared  this  perfect  creation.  They  had  cre 
ated  this  beauty  out  of  their  faith  in  righteousness,  and 
they  would  again  create  other  beauty,  out  of  other  mani 
festations  of  righteousness,  long  after  this  war  was  a 
forgotten  nightmare.  .  .  . 

"  What  is  that  shining  on  your  face,  mother  ?  " 
I  put  my  hand  up.     My  cheeks  are  wet.     "Tears, 
dear." 

"  O  mother,  why  do  you  cry  ?  " 

"  Because  I  am  very  happy,  my  darling." 


A  FAIR  EXCHANGE 

THE  energetic,  well-dressed  man  who  walked  so 
quickly  in  spite  of  his  gray  hair  was  quite  out  of  breath 
from  the  unusual  experience  of  mounting  stairs  on  foot, 
when  he  stepped  into  the  anteroom.  There  he  looked 
about  him  with  a  keenly  observant  eye.  The  room  had 
obviously  not  been  intended  as  the  entrance  to  modern 
offices.  Its  dingy,  paneled  walls  and  darkened  carved 
ceiling  dated  at  least  from  the  time  when  the  ancestors 
of  the  newcomer  were  hunting  Indians  in  the  untracked 
forests  of  Massachusetts.  It  was  a  forlorn  cheerless 
apology  for  a  convenient,  well-equipped  business  waiting- 
room.  And  yet  the  intelligent,  keen  eyes  now  looking  at 
it  saw  in  it  .  .  .  what  ?  Something  he  could  not  analyze, 
something  he  tried  to  express.  "  What  the  devil  is  it 
about  their  little  old  holes  .  .  .  ?  "  he  asked  himself  with 
the  fresh  vivid  curiosity  which  was  his  habit  about 
phenomena  new  to  him. 

A  one-armed  young  soldier,  in  a  worn  blue  uniform, 
with  a  patch  over  one  eye,  rose  up  from  the  cane-bot 
tomed  chair,  took  from  the  white-pine  table  a  small  pad 
of  paper  and  held  it  out  to  the  newcomer  sketching  a 
bow.  The  older  man  looked  the  other  way  sedulously. 
He  was  a  very  tender-hearted  person  (except  of  course 
for  his  business  competitors)  and  the  constant  sight  of 


A  FAIR  EXCHANGE  85 

the  maimed  wreckage  of  young  manhood  made  him 
sick. 

On  the  pad  of  paper  was  printed  "  Nom  du  Visiteur," 
with  a  blank  following  it,  and,  underneath,  "  Objet  de  la 
visite."  Mr.  Male's  French  was  limited,  but  he  made 
out  that  he  was  to  write  down  who  he  was  and  what  his 
business  was,  and  generously  he  admired  the  little  detail 
of  office  administration  which  he  had  never  happened 
to  see  in  an  American  business  office.  "  That  beats 
sending  in  a  message  by  the  office-boy,  all  right ! "  he 
thought  to  himself  as  he  wrote.  "  They  are  funny  peo 
ple!  Just  when  you  get  absolute  proof  that  they  can't 
do  business  any  more  than  a  sick  cat,  you  run  into  some 
thing  that  makes  you  wonder.*' 

He  had  written  on  the  pad  "  Randolph  Metcalf  Hale, 
President  of  the  Illinois  Association  of  Druggists,"  and, 
underneath  that,  "  On  business  connected  with  closer 
commercial  relations  of  France  and  the  United  States." 
As  he  handed  the  slip  of  paper  back  to  the  young  soldier 
he  thought,  "  I  might  about  as  well  get  a  rubber  stamp 
for  that  last,  and  save  writing  it  over  so  often." 

The  uniformed  messenger  limped  out  of  the  room. 
"  Oh  Lord !  and  a  wooden  leg,  along  with  only  one  eye 
and  one  arm,"  thought  Mr.  Hale,  wincing  at  the  too 
familiar  sound  of  the  halting  gait.  He  thrust  his  hands 
deep  into  his  pockets  and  stood  meditatively  looking 
down  at  his  own  vigorous,  well-clad  legs. 

The  soldier  came  back  and  motioned  the  visitor  to 
follow  him.  They  went  along  a  narrow  corridor  with 


86  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

occasional  steps  up  and  other  steps  down,  with  large 
old  windows  looking  out  through  time-dimmed  panes 
upon  a  stone-paved  court  with  an  old  gray  stone  foun 
tain.  The  American  shook  his  head.  "  Never  anything 
new!  Always  cutting  their  clothes  out  of  their  grand 
father's  left-overs  and  sewing  them  up  by  hand;  that's 
it,  everything  hand-made !  " 

He  was  ushered  into  an  office  where  a  man  of  about 
his  own  age,  with  a  black  beard,  streaked  with  white,, 
rose  up  and  came  towards  him  with  outstretched  hand. 

"  Ninth  to-day,"  noted  the  American  mentally.  He 
amused  himself  by  keeping  statistics  on  the  fabulous 
amount  of  handshaking  accomplished  in  French  business 
life. 

Then  he  explained  his  presence.  Partly  because  he 
accounted  it  a  crime  to  take  longer  than  necessary  to  state 
your  business,  and  partly  because  he  had  stated  it  so 
many  times,  he  packed  a  succinct  account  of  himself  into 
comparatively  few  phrases. 

"  Like  almost  everybody  else  in  America,  Monsieur 
Portier,  I  want  to  help  make  up  to  France  for  the  way 
she's  been  having  the  rough  end  of  all  this  war.  But 
everybody  does  best  at  his  own  sort  of  help;  and  I 
didn't  come  over  for  reconstructing  villages  or  taking 
care  of  refugees.  That  sort  of  work's  got  to  be  done,  of 
course,  but  there  are  a  lot  of  our  own  folks  at  that  al 
ready.  Anyhow,  not  knowing  your  language,  or  your 
folks,  I'd  make  a  poor  job  of  trying  to  fix  up  their 
personal  lives.  That's  not  my  specialty.  But  I  have  a 


A  FAIR  EXCHANGE  87 

specialty,  and  that's  the  American  toilet  preparations 
business.  And  it  occurred  to  me  out  there  in  Evanston 
that  perhaps  getting  American  business  along  my  line 
joined  up  closer  with  French  business  would  be  as  good 
a  turn  as  I  could  do  for  France.  After  all,  though  it 
does  give  you  the  horrors  to  see  the  poor  boys  with  their 
legs  and  arms  shot  off,  that  doesn't  last  but  one  genera 
tion.  But  business  now  ...  all  the  future  is  there ! " 
His  eye  kindled.  He  had  evidently  pronounced  his  credo. 
The  attentive  Frenchman  behind  the  desk  nodded,  ac 
quiescing  in  carefully  accurate  English:  "  Precisely,  Mr. 
Hale.  You  had  the  very  same  idea  which  induced  my 
Government  to  organize  this  committee  of  which  I  am 
secretary.  I  am  more  than  at  your  disposition." 

"  I  know  it,"  said  the  American  without  further  ex 
pression  of  gratitude  than  this  recognition,  "  and  that's 
why  I'm  here.  I've  got  to  a  place  where  I  need  some 
help.  It's  this  way.  I've  done  a  lot  of  straight  business, 
I  mean  paying  business.  And  I've  managed  that  all 
right.  I've  got  the  rails  laid  for  our  sending  over  drug 
specialties  you  don't  have  here  and  for  shipping  to  the 
States  the  toilet  preparations  specialties  I  find  here.  But 
now  I'm  here  I  want  to  do  more  than  just  regular  busi 
ness.  Now  that  I  see  your  country  and  take  in  what 
the  war's  been,  and  think  what  you've  been  up  against 
.  .  .  well,  Monsieur  Portier,  I  tell  you  I  want  to  do 
something  for  France !  " 

He  said  this  with  a  simple,  heartfelt  sincerity  which 
moved  the  Frenchman  to  lean  from  his  chair  and  give 


88  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

him  a  silent  handshake  of  appreciation.  The  American 
forgot  to  add  this  to  his  total  for  the  day,  going  on  ear* 
nestly  with  his  story :  "  And  so,  I  keep  my  eyes  open  all 
the  time  for  little  good  turns  I  can  do.  I  don't  mean 
charity  .  .  .  honestly,  I  think  that  does  about  as  much 
harm  as  good,  though  of  course  we  have  to  go  through 
the  motions  in  a  time  like  this.  I  mean  business  good 
turns,  such  as  I'd  like  to  have  anybody  do  me,  look  at 
my  concern  with  a  fresh  eye  and  tell  me  how  I  could 
make  it  better,  or  else  tell  me  where  I  could  find  a 
bigger  market.  You  understand  ?  Like  that.  Now  I've 
been  doing  business  with  a  big  chemical  factory  out  in 
the  country  near  Paris.  The  nearest  place  to  it,  for  me, 
is  Versailles  .  .  .  maybe  you  happen  to  know  Ver 
sailles?" 

The  Frenchman  nodded  gravely.  Yes,  he  had  a  mar 
ried  sister  living  in  Versailles.  "  Well,  there's  a  little 
drug-store  out  there,  one  of  these  peaceful,  sleepy- 
looking,  home-and-mother  French  drug-stores,  with  a 
big  cat  dozing  in  the  window,  and  somebody  in  a  white 
apron  putting  up  pills  behind  the  counter,  and  so  far  as 
anybody  from  my  part  of  the  world  can  see,  not  enough 
business  doing  from  one  week's  end  to  another,  to  buy  a 
postage-stamp." 

The  Frenchman  laughed.  "  Oh,  it's  a  very  good  busi 
ness  in  France  being  a  pharmacies" 

"  That's  what  everybody  tells  me,  and  that's  what  gets 
me.  One  of  the  things  that  gets  me!  In  our  country 
when  there  is  any  business  being  done  you  hear  the 


A  FAIR  EXCHANGE  89 

wheels  going  '  round/  I  can't  get  used  to  this  smooth 
European  way  of  doing  it  and  not  letting  on.  Well,  my 
main  interest  in  life  being  the  toilet  preparations  business 
I  hardly  ever  go  by  one  without  stopping  in.  You  never 
know  when  you're  going  to  run  onto  something  worth 
while.  Well,  out  there  in  Versailles,  I  certainly  did.  I 
ran  onto  a  genius.  Yes,  sir,  that's  not  too  much  to  say;  a 
genius!  Any  man  who  can  make  a  cold  cream  like 
that  .  .  ." 

He  interrupted  himself  to  ask :  "  You  don't  happen  to 
be  up  on  cold  cream?  No?  It's  a  pity,  because  you 
can't  appreciate  what  that  man  is  doing.  By  George,  I 
never  saw  anything  like  it,  and  I've  dealt  in  cold  creams 
for  thirty  years!  It's  got  anything  in  America  beaten  a 
mile!  The  two  great  faults  of  cold  cream,  you  see,  are 
being  greasy  and  being  crumbly.  This  isn't  either.  And 
it  keeps!  He  showed  me  some  he'd  had  for  four  years 
in  a  pot,  with  just  a  flat  earthenware  lid  laid  on  top,  and 
you  wouldn't  believe  it,  Monsieur  Portier,  but  it  hadn't 
changed  an  atom,  not  an  atom!  And  the  fineness  of  it! 
The  least  little  pinch  between  your  fingers,  and  it  just 
sinks  right  into  your  pores  before  your  eyes!  It's  like 
cream,  thick,  rich  cream  off  a  three-days-set  pan  of  milk, 
and  yet  it  don't  run!  And  the  perfume!  Monsieur 
Portier,  I  give  you  my  word  for  it,  and  I  know  what  I'm 
talking  about,  the  perfume  that  little  old  druggist  out  in 
his  dinky  little  old  shop  has  got  into  his  cold  cream  is 
the  only  refined  cold  cream  perfume  I  ever  smelled !  It 
makes  all  the  others  smell  like  a  third-rate  actress.  It's 


90  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

got  a  ...  it's  got  a  ..."  He  hesitated,  searching  for 
exactly  the  right  word  and  brought  it  out  with  enthusi 
asm,  "  it's  got  a  clean  smell,  if  you  get  me,  like  a  nice 
girl  after  a  bath!  I've  got  daughters  of  my  own,"  he 
added  in  whimsical  justification  of  his  metaphor. 

The  Frenchman  had  been  watching  him  with  appre 
ciative  eyes.  "  Mr.  Hale,  I  see  that,  like  so  many  of 
your  countrymen,  you  are  a  real  artist  in  your  line,  and 
you  have  the  artist's  flavor." 

The  American  was  disconcerted  by  this  characteriza 
tion.  "  Who  ?  Me  ?  I  know  a  good  thing  when  I  see 
it,  that's  all,  and  that's  business,  that's  not  art." 

The  Frenchman  smiled  with  the  amused,  respectful 
sympathy  which  men  of  his  race  so  often  feel  for  their 
American  contemporaries.  "  Well,  and  what  did  you 
do  when  you  discovered  this  miraculous  cold  cream  ?  " 

Mr.  Hale  laughed,  a  young,  vigorous  laugh  which 
made  his  gray  hair  seem  a  paradox.  "  Well,  you've 
guessed  it.  I  threw  a  fit,  first  of  all.  I  was  taken  off 
my  feet,  and  I  wouldn't  be  surprised  if  I  acted  like  a  cat 
over  catnip.  So  I  decided  I'd  better  go  away  and  cool 
off  before  I  did  anything  rash.  I  bought  a  couple  of  pots 
and  went  back  to  the  hotel  to  sleep  on  it.  That's  some 
thing  I  always  try  to  do,  Monsieur  Portier,  before  I  let 
myself  in  for  a  big  proposition;  and  I  meant  this  to  be 
big,  all  right.  I  wanted  to  see  if  that  cold  cream  seemed 
as  good  after  twenty-four  hours  as  it  did  at  first.  Well, 
it  did,  and  then  some !  So  I  got  the  Swede  porter  at  my 
hotel,  who  can  talk  some  English,  to  go  back  with  me. 


A  FAIR  EXCHANGE  91 

And  I  started  in  to  ask  the  old  fellow  all  about  it.  Right 
there  I  struck  a  difference.  After  the  way  I'd  gone  on, 
an  American,  when  I  went  back  the  next  day,  would  have 
been  wondering  what  I  was  trying  to  take  away  from 
him;  but  my  old  friend  was  just  as  pleased  as  a  mother 
is  when  you  tell  her  she's  got  a  pretty  baby.  In  fact  he 
reminded  me  of  that,  the  way  he  talked.  So  glad  to  tell 
me  all  about  it.  I  got  the  impression  before  he  got 
through  that  it  was  a  member  of  the  family.  I  don't 
mean,  of  course,  that  he  told  me  how  he  made  it.  I 
wouldn't  have  let  him  if  he'd  started  to.  But  he  told 
me  everything  else.  To  begin  with,  he  told  me  that  his 
folks  have  been  pharmacists  right  there  for  more  than  a 
hundred  years!  A  hundred  years  in  that  little  shop  in 
that  little  street  in  that  little  town !  I  tell  you,  Monsieur 
Portier,  I  never  can  get  used  to  the  way  your  people 
stay  put." 

The  Frenchman  looked  grave.  "  Perhaps  too  much 
so,  Mr.  Hale." 

"  Anyhow,  he  said  they  had  the  recipe,  the  first  recipe 
for  that  cold  cream  in  his  great-grandfather's  handwrit 
ing.  He  said  there'd  been  some  talk  always  in  the  family 
about  its  having  come  from  his  great-grandfather's 
father,  who  had  sold  toilet  specialties  to  Marie  Antoi 
nette,  the  queen,  you  know.  He  said  he  himself  didn't 
take  much  stock  in  that  story  because  everybody  in 
France,  more  or  less,  claimed  to  have  a  great-grandfather 
who'd  had  dealings  with  Marie  Antoinette,  but  I  just 
thought  to  myself  what  a  good  smart  advertisement 


92  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

agency  could  do  with  that  item  .   .   .  you  could  see  it  on 

-every  billboard  between  New  York  and  San  Francisco 

.   .    .  '  Marie  Antoinette's  own  cold  cream,  rediscovered 

recipe/     If  you've  been  in  America,  you  can  imagine." 

'  Yes,"  said  the  Frenchman,  "  I  can  imagine/' 

"  He  said,  of  course,  they  had  not  stuck  absolutely  to 
that  recipe  just  as  it  stood.  His  grandfather  had  made 
some  changes,  experimented  with  it  all  his  life,  and  his 
father  had  changed  the  proportions,  just  little  shadings, 
with  years  in  between,  to  think  them  over  and  to  be  sure 
they  were  right.  But  he  himself  had  changed  it  the 
most,  because  modern  chemistry  had  let  him  substitute 
for  one  ingredient  that  had  never  been  just  right,  some 
thing  else  that  exactly  filled  the  bill.  Do  you  know,  Mon 
sieur  Portier,  as  he  stood  there  telling  me  how,  for  a 
hundred  years,  three  generations  of  his  folks  had  con 
centrated  on  that,  I  said  to  myself :  '  By  George,  there's  a 
reason!  No  wonder  it's  better  than  any  of  our  get- 
there-quick  products.  They've  certainly  got  us  beat/ ' 

To  this  handsome  tribute  the  Frenchman  replied  du 
biously  :  "  It  is  very  generous,  Mr.  Hale,  to  say  such  a 
thing.  But  since  taking  over  the  work  on  this  commit 
tee  I  have  had  periods  of  great  depression  when  it  has 
seemed  to  me  that  no  power  on  earth,  not  even  American 
energy  from  which  I  hope  a  great  deal,  could  ever  move 
our  trades-people  from  their  century-old  habits  of  busi 
ness  inertia  and  lack  of  enterprise." 

"  Well,  I  understand  that,  too,"  agreed  the  American 
sympathetically;  "  I  certainly  do,  because  that's  just  what 


A  FAIR  EXCHANGE  93 

Fve  come  to  see  you  about.  We  went  on  with  our  con 
fab,  my  old  friend  and  I,  and  he  showed  me  his  books 
to  show  how  the  sale  of  the  cold  cream  had  grown 
since  they  began  on  it.  It  seems  they've  had  quite  a  lot 
of  their  customers  for  sixty  or  seventy  years.  Not  Ver 
sailles  people  at  all,  you  know,  people  from  all  over, 
people  who  had  tried  it  once  and  never  would  have 
another,  and  I  don't  blame  them.  He's  got  quite  a  lot 
of  aristocrats  on  his  list.  He  showed  me  names  on  his 
account  book  that  made  it  look  like  a  history  of  France. 
Well,  the  sum-total  of  it  came  to  this.  His  grandfather 
sold  on  an  average  three  hundred  pots  a  year,  which  was 
good  for  those  days;  in  his  father's  time  it  went  up,  so 
he  said,  astonishingly,  to  fifteen  hundred  pots  a  year; 
but  he  had  done  even  better,  and  in  his  little  factory- 
laboratory  that  he'd  had  to  enlarge,  he  made  four  thou 
sand  pots  a  year  and  sold  them  all.  'More  than  ten 
times  what  his  grandfather  had  done.' ' 

In  repeating  these  statistics  he  reproduced  with  an 
ironical  exactness  the  tone  of  self -congratulation  of  the 
pharmacist.  The  man  before  him  fell  into  the  little  trap, 
remarking  innocently :  "  That  is  indeed  making  a  re 
markable  enlargement." 

The  American  sat  up  straight  in  his  chair  so  suddenly 
that  he  gave  the  effect  of  having  leaped  to  his  feet. 
"Remarkable!  Why,  it  was  all  I  could  do  to  keep  from 
sitting  right  down  and  crying.  Remarkable!  Why, 
with  the  article  he  has  there,  the  family  ought  to 
have  been  millionaires  a  generation  ago !  Anybody  with 


94  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

a  particle  of  business  imagination  would  have  put  it  on 
the  bathroom  shelf  of  every  family  in  Christendom." 
He  went  on,  more  quietly :  "  I  said  something  of  that  to 
the  old  fellow  and  I  tried,  through  that  hotel  porter,  to 
make  him  understand  what  my  proposition  was,  to  take 
up  his  cold  cream.  To  take  it  up  strong.  I  outlined  my 
plan  for  the  advertising  campaign,  I  told  him  some  of 
the  figures  of  our  toilet  preparations  market,  and  I  told 
him  I'd  guarantee  him  in  less  than  six  months'  time  to 
have  a  demand  for  fifteen  hundred  gross  pots  and  by  the 
end  of  the  first  year  it  would  pass  the  four  thousand 
gross  mark.  I  told  him  just  how  I  could  get  him  credit 
on  the  easiest  terms  for  the  enlargement  of  his  plant  .  .  . 
one  of  our  Merchants'  Associations  is  prepared  to  give 
credit  to  French  and  Belgian  firms,  and  I  was  just  start 
ing  in  to  explain  how  it  wouldn't  be  any  risk  for  him  at 
all,  and  absolute  certain  big  profits  for  him  and  his  son 
.  .  .  he's  got  a  son  at  the  front  now  who's  passed  his 
pharmacist's  examination  and  is  ready  to  go  on  with  his 
father's  business.  ..." 

He  stopped  short  for  a  moment,  staring  into  space  as 
though  recalling  the  scene. 

"Well,"  prompted  the  French  listener,  "what  did 
he  say?" 

"  He  said,  as  near  as  I  could  make  out  from  what  the 
hotel  porter  told  me,  he  said  he  didn't  want  to"  replied 
the  American,  in  the  carefully  restrained  voice  of  one 
who  recounts  an  enormity  so  patent  that  there  is  no  need 
for  emphasis  to  bring  out  its  monstrousness.  "  Yes, 


A  FAIR  EXCHANGE  95 

from  what  the  hotel  porter  said,  I  took  it  that  he  said  he 
didn't  want  to!  It  wasn't  that  he  was  afraid  of  losing 
money,  or  that  he  suspected  a  skin  deal  ...  at  least 
that  was  what  he  said  .  .  .  nor  that  he  doubted  a  single 
thing  I  said,  it  was  just  that  he  guessed  he  didn't  feel 
like  it  to-day,  thank  you." 

He  reached  for  his  hat  and  stood  up.  "  There,  Mon 
sieur  Portier,  there's  where  I  am.  I  started  to  argue, 
of  course.  I  tried  to  get  at  what  in  hell  was  the  matter 
anyhow.  But  I  soon  saw  I  was  up  against  something  too 
big  for  that  hotel  porter  to  manage.  So  I  came  to  see 
if  you  would  go  back  with  me,  or  send  somebody  who's 
got  good  sense  and  business  experience,  and  help  me 
make  that  proposition  all  over  again.  It  must  be  of 
course  that  that  hotel  porter  got  the  thing  all  balled  up, 
the  way  he  put  it.  I  ought  to  have  known  better  than 
to  trust  it  to  a  Swede,  anyhow." 

Monsieur  Portier  looked  at  the  calendar  on  his  desk. 
'  Yes,  I  shall  be  glad  to  go  out  with  you.  Let  me  see,  to 
day  is  Monday,  next  Thursday  afternoon." 

The  visitors  face  dropped.  "Not  till  Thursday!" 
he  cried,  as  though  that  date  were  in  the  next  century. 
"  I  was  hoping  you  could  go  right  back  with  me  now. 
I've  got  a  taxi  waiting  downstairs." 

The  Frenchman's  face  wore  for  an  instant  a  look  of 
consternation  which  changed  into  a  rather  curious, 
strained  expression.  Then  he  said  with  the  accent  of 
heroism,  laughing  a  little,  "  Yes,  Mr.  Hale,  there  is 
really  no  valid  reason  for  my  not  going  with  you  now, 


96  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

at  this  instant,  and  I  will !  "  He  seemed  to  regard  the 
resolution  as  an  extraordinary  one,  adding  whimsically, 
as  he  put  on  his  overcoat,  "  Ah,  you  can  never,  never 
understand,  my  dear  Mr.  Hale,  the  awful  effort  of 
will  it  costs  a  European  to  do  something  the  mo 
ment  it  is  suggested  instead  of  putting  it  off  till  the  next 
week." 

"  No,"  said  the  American  heartily,  "  that's  something 
I  never  will  understand." 

As  they  approached  the  shining  windows  of  the  phar 
macy,  where  as  a  matter  of  fact  a  big,  beautifully  cared- 
for  cat  was  sleeping  in  the  sun,  the  Frenchman  ex 
claimed  :  "  Oh,  it's  Monsieur  Requine's  pharmacy !  I've 
known  him  for  years,  ever  since  my  sister  came  to  live 
in  Versailles.  I  didn't  think  it  could  be  he  because  you 
spoke  of  him  always  as  old." 

"  Isn't  he?"  asked  the  American. 

"  Fifty-two.     Is  that  old?    I  hope  not." 

"Fifty-two!  I'm  fifty-four  myself!  That's  one  on 
me!" 

"  What  made  you  think  him  old  ?  His  hair  isn't  white. 
He  hasn't  any  wrinkles.  Really,  I'm  curious  to  know." 

The  American  stopped  on  the  curbstone,  pondering, 
his  alert  mind  interested  by  the  little  problem  in  self- 
analysis.  "  What  did  make  me,  I  wonder  ? "  He 
glanced  in  through  the  open  door  and  said :  "  Well,  just 
look  at  him  as  he  stands  there,  his  hands  clasped  over 
his  stomach, — you  can  see  for  yourself.  It's  a  kind  of 


A  FAIR  EXCHANGE  97 

set:led-down-to-stay  look  that  I'm  not  used  to  seeing  un 
less  a  man  is  so  old  that  he  can't  move  on  any  more." 

The  Frenchman  looked  at  the  druggist  and  then  at 
the  man  beside  him.  "  Yes,  I  see  what  you  mean,"  he 
admitted.  He  said  it  with  a  sigh. 

They  entered  the  shop.  The  druggist  came  forward 
with  a  smile,  and  shook  hands  heartily  with  them  both. 
"  Eleven,"  noted  the  American  mentally. 

"  Monsieur  Requine,"  said  the  French  visitor,  "  can't 
we  go  through  into  your  salon,  or  perhaps  out  into  your 
garden  for  a  little  talk  ? "  Mr.  Requine  glowed  with 
hospitality.  "  Yes,  yes,  delighted.  I'll  just  ask  my  wife 
to  step  here  to  mind  the  shop." 

"  His  wife! "  asked  the  American,  "  to  wait  on  cus 
tomers  ?  " 

A  well-dressed,  tall,  full-bosomed  woman  of  forty- 
odd,  with  elaborately  dressed  black  hair  and  a  much 
powdered,  intelligent  face  came  in  answer  to  the  call 
and  installed  herself  back  of  the  counter  with  her  knit 
ting. 

''  Yes,  and  she  knows  as  much  about  the  business  end 
as  he  does,  you  may  be  sure,"  said  the  Frenchman  as  they 
went  through  a  door  at  the  back  of  the  shop,  emerging, 
not,  as  the  American  expected,  into  a  storeroom,  but 
into  an  attractive  parlor.  They  passed  through  the  salon, 
into  an  exquisitely  kept  little  dining-room  and  out  into 
a  walled  garden  which  made  the  American  pass  his  hand 
over  his  eyes  and  look  again.  While  their  host  was 
installing  them  at  the  little  round  green  iron  table  under 


98  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

a  trellis  overgrown  by  a  magnificent  grapevine,  Mr. 
Hale's  eyes  traveled  from  one  point  to  another  of  the 
small  paradise  before  him.  It  could  not  have  been  more 
than  a  hundred  feet  wide  and  three  hundred  long,  but 
like  a  fabled  spot  in  the  "  Arabian  Nights  "  it  shone 
resplendent  with  incredible  riches.  The  stone  walls,  ten 
feet  high,  were  carpeted  to  the  top  with  a  mantle  of  glis 
tening  green  leaves,  among  which  hung  peaches  and 
pears,  glorious  to  the  view,  rank  on  rank,  such  fruit  as 
the  American  had  never  thought  could  exist.  On  each 
side  of  the  graveled  path  down  the  center  were  flowering 
plants,  like  great  bouquets  each.  Back  of  them  were 
more  fruit-trees,  none  more  than  eight  feet  tall,  bearing 
each  a  dozen  or  more  amazing  apples,  as  brightly  colored 
as  the  flowers.  Around  the  trees  were  vegetables,  car 
rots,  salads,  cabbages,  every  specimen  as  floridly  full- 
leafed  and  perfect  as  the  incredible  pictures  Mr.  Hale 
had  seen,  and  disbelieved  in,  on  the  front  cT  seed  cata 
logues. 

From  the  other  end  of  the  garden,  drenched  in  sun 
shine,  came  the  humming  of  bees.  Above  their  heads  a 
climbing  rose  covering  the  end  of  the  house  sent  down 
a  clear,  delicate  perfume  from  its  hundred  flowers. 

The  American's  eyes  came  back  from  their  inspection 
of  all  this  and  rested  with  a  new  expression  on  his  rather 
snuffy,  rather  stout  and  undistinguished  host.  "  Will 
you  please  tell  Monsieur  Requine  from  me,"  he  said  to 
his  companion,  "  that  I  never  saw  such  a  garden  in  my 
life?" 


A  FAIR  EXCHANGE  99 

Monsieur  Requine  waved  the  tribute  away  with  sin 
cere  humility.  "  Oh,  it's  nothing  compared  to  those  all 
about  me.  I  can't  give  it  the  time  I  would  like  to.  Later 
on,  when  I  am  retired,  and  my  son  has  the  business  ..." 
his  gesture  seemed  to  indicate  wider  horizons  of  horticul 
tural  excellence  before  which  the  American's  imagina 
tion  recoiled  breathless. 

The  straw-colored  liqueur  had  been  poured  out  into 
the  glasses,  which  were,  so  Mr.  Hale  noticed,  of  ex 
tremely  fine  and  delicate  workmanship  ..."  and  his 
wife  tending  shop !  "  The  two  Frenchmen  drank  with 
ceremonious  bowings  and  murmured  salutations.  Mr. 
Hale  consumed  his  fiery  draught  silently  but  with  a  not 
ungraceful  self-possession.  He  was  at  his  ease  with  all 
kinds  of  ways  of  taking  a  drink. 

Then,  drawing  a  long  breath,  taking  off  his  hat  and 
putting  his  elbows  on  the  table,  he  began  to  expound  and 
the  French  official  with  him  to  translate.  The  bees 
hummed  a  queer,  unsuitable  accompaniment  to  his 
resonant,  forceful  staccato. 

He  talked  a  long  time.  The  patches  of  sunlight  which 
fell  through  the  vines  over  their  heads  had  shifted  their 
places  perceptibly  when  he  stopped,  his  head  high,  his 
gray  eagle's  eyes  flashing. 

The  elderly  Frenchman  opposite  him  had  listened  in 
tently,  his  fat,  wrinkled  hands  crossed  on  his  waistcoat, 
an  expression  of  thoughtful  consideration  on  his  broad 
face  and  in  his  small,  very  intelligent  brown  eyes.  When 
the  American  finished  speaking,  he  bent  his  head  cour- 


ioo  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

teously  and  said :  "  Mr.  Hale,  you  have  spoken  with 
great  eloquence.  But  you  have  forgotten  to  touch  on  one 
matter,  and  that  is  the  reason  for  my  doing  all  that  you 
outline  so  enthusiastically.  Why  should  I  ? "  It  was 
evidently  a  genuine  and  not  a  rhetorical  question,  for  he 
paused  for  a  reply,  awaiting  it  with  sincere  curiosity  on 
his  face.  He  received  none,  however,  the  fluent  Ameri 
can  being  totally  at  a  loss.  "  Why  should  you?  "  he  said 
blankly.  "  I  don't  believe  I  understand  you."  The  two 
exchanged  a  long  puzzled  look  across  the  little  table, 
centuries  and  worlds  apart. 

"  Why,  I  mean/*  Monsieur  Requine  went  on  finally, 
"  I  don't  see  any  possible  reason  for  embarking  in  such  a 
terrifyingly  vast  enterprise  as  you  outline;  no  reason  for, 
and  many  against.  To  speak  of  nothing  else,  I  am  abso 
lutely,  morally  certain  that  my  cold  cream  "  (he  spoke 
of  it  with  respect  and  affection)  "  would  immediately 
deteriorate  if  it  were  manufactured  on  such  an  inhuman 
scale  of  immensity  as  you  plan,  with  factories  here  and 
factories  there,  run  by  mercenary  superintendents  who 
had  no  personal  interest  in  its  excellence,  with  miscel 
laneous  workmen  picked  up  out  of  the  street  haphazard. 
Why,  Mr.  Hale,  you  have  no  idea  of  the  difficulties  I 
have,  as  it  is,  to  get  and  train  and  keep  serious,  con 
scientious  work-people.  I  should  be  lost  without  the 
little  nucleus  of  old  helpers  who  have  been  with  our  fam 
ily  for  two  generations  and  who  set  the  tone  of  our  small 
factory.  They  have  the  reputation  and  fine  quality  of 
our  cold  cream  at  heart  as  much  as  we  of  the  family. 


A  FAIR  EXCHANGE  101 

They  help  us  in  the  selection  oi  the  rieWer,  younger 
workers  whom  we  need  to  fill  the  ranks,  they  help  us 
to  train  them  in  the  traditions  and  methods  of  our  work, 
and  with  patience  teach  them,  one  by  one,  year  by  year, 
the  innumerable  little  fine  secrets  of  manipulation  which 
have  been  worked  out  since  my  grandfather  began  the 
manufacture  there  in  that  room  back  of  you  in  1836. 
Our  recipe  is  much  of  course,  it  is  all  important;  but  it  is 
not  all.  Oh  no,  Mr.  Hale,  it  is  not  all.  We  put  into  our 
cold  cream  beside  the  recipe,  patience,  conscience,  and 
pride,  and  that  deftness  of  hand  that  only  comes  after 
years  of  training.  You  cannot  buy  those  qualities  on  the 
market,  not  for  any  price.  To  think  of  my  recipe  put 
into  the  hands  of  money-making  factory  superintendents 
and  a  rabble  horde  of  riffraff  workmen!  .  .  .  Mr. 
Hale,  you  must  excuse  me  for  saying  that  I  am  aston 
ished  at  your  proposing  it,  you  who  have  shown  by  your 
generous  appreciation  of  its  qualities  that  you  are  so 
worthy  a  member  of  our  guild." 

He  paused,  stirred  from  his  usual  equable  calm  and 
waited  for  an  answer.  But  he  still  received  none.  The 
American  was  staring  at  him  across  an  unfathomable 
chasm  of  differences. 

Monsieur  Requine  continued :  "  And  as  for  me  per 
sonally,  I  am  almost  as  astonished  that  you  propose  it. 
For  nothing  in  all  the  world  would  I  enter  upon  such  a 
life  as  you  depict,  owing  great  sums  of  money  to  begin 
with,  for  no  matter  how  '  easy '  your  business  credit 
may  be  made  in  the  modern  world,  the  fact  remains 


102  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

that  I  should  He  down1  at  night  and  rise  up  in  the  morn 
ing  conscious  that  thousands  of  men  had  intrusted  thei: 
money  to  me,  that  I  might  easily,  by  one  false  step  o; 
piece  of  bad  judgment,  lose  forever  money  which  mean; 
life  to  poor  women  or  old  men.  Such  a  fiery  trial  wouk 
shrivel  me  up.  It  would  be  my  death,  I  who  have  neve: 
owed  a  penny  in  my  life.  And  then  what?  Even  wit! 
the  utmost  success  which  you  hold  out,  I  should  have  ; 
life  which,  compared  with  what  I  now  have,  would  b< 
infernal;  rushing  to  and  fro  over  the  face  of  the  earth 
away  from  home,  my  wife,  my  children,  homeless  fo: 
half  the  time,  constantly  employed  in  the  most  momen 
tous  and  important  decisions  where  in  order  to  succeee 
I  must  give  all  of  myself,  all,  all,  my  brain,  my  person 
ality,  my  will  power,  my  soul  .  .  .  what  would  be  left  o: 
me  for  leisure  moments  ?  Nothing !  I  should  be  an  empt] 
husk,  drained  of  everything  that  makes  me  a  living 
and  a  human  being.  But  of  course  there  would  not  b< 
any  leisure  moments.  ...  I  see  from  what  you  sc 
eloquently  say  that  I  would  have  become  the  slave  anc 
not  the  master  of  that  invention  w^hich  has  come  dowr 
to  me  from  my  fathers;  that  instead  of  its  furnishing  m< 
and  my  work-people  with  a  quiet,  orderly,  contentec 
life,  I  should  only  exist  to  furnish  it  means  for  a  wild 
fantastic  growth,  like  something  in  a  nightmare,  becaus< 
a  real  growth  is  never  like  that,  never! 

"  Mr.  Hale,  do  you  know  what  I  do  of  an  evening 
in  the  summer?  I  leave  the  shop  at  half-past  five  or  six 
and  I  step  into  my  garden,  where  I  work  till  half-pasi 


A  FAIR  EXCHANGE  103 

seven,  when  I  am  most  exquisitely  hungry.  We  dine 
here  under  this  vine,  my  wife,  my  daughters,  and  my 
son  (he  who  is  now  at  the  front).  Afterwards  we  sit 
and  chat  and  exchange  impressions  of  the  day,  as  the 
moon  comes  up  or  the  stars  come  out.  Perhaps  some  of 
the  young  friends  of  the  children  drop  in  for  a  game 
of  cards.  My  wife  and  I  sit  down  at  the  other  end 
of  the  garden  on  the  stone  bench  where  we  sat  when  she 
came  here  as  a  bride,  where  my  father  and  mother  sat 
when  they  were  bride  and  groom.  The  stars  come  out. 
I  smoke  my  pipe  and  watch  them.  Mr.  Hale,  it  is  very 
surprising,  the  things  which  come  into  your  head,  if  you 
sit  quietly  and  watch  the  stars  come  out.  I  would  not 
miss  thinking  them  for  anything  in  the  world.  We  talk 
a  little,  my  wife  knits.  We  meditate  a  great  deal.  We 
hear  the  gay  voices  of  our  children  coming  to  us  mingled 
with  the  breath  of  the  roses.  We  have  finished  another 
day,  and  we  are  very  glad  to  be  there,  alive,  with  each 
other,  in  our  garden.  When  we  come  in,  my  wife 
makes  me  a  cup  of  tisane  and  while  I  sip  that  I  read, 
sometimes  a  little  of  Montaigne,  sometimes  a  little  of 
Horace,  sometimes  something  modern.  And  all  that 
while,  Mr.  Hale,  there  is  in  our  home,  in  our  hearts, 
the  most  precious  distillation  of  peace,  the  ..." 

For  some  moments  the  American  had  been  surging 
inwardly,  and  he  now  boiled  over  with  a  great  wave  of 
words.  "  Will  you  just  let  me  tell  you  what  you've 
been  describing  to  me,  Monsieur  Requine?  The  life  of 
an  old,  old  man  .  .  .  and  you're  younger  than  I  am! 


104  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

And  will  you  let  me  tell  you  what  I'd  call  your  '  peace '  ? 
I'd  call  it  laziness!  Why,  that's  the  kind  of  life  that 
would  suit  an  oyster  right  down  to  the  ground!  And, 
by  George,  that's  the  kind  of  life  that  gave  the  Boches 
their  strangle-hold  on  French  commerce  before  the  war. 
They  weren't  afraid  of  good  credit  when  it  was  held  out 
to  them  1  They  had  it  too  easy,  with  nobody  to  stand  mp 
against  them  but  able-bodied  men  willing  to  sit  down  in 
their  gardens  in  the  evenings  and  meditate  on  the  stars, 
instead  of  thinking  how  to  enlarge  their  business!  I'll 
bet  they  didn't  read  Horace  instead  of  a  good  technical 
magazine  that  would  keep  them  up  to  date.  Why,  Mon 
sieur  Requine,  I  give  you  my  word,  I  have  never  looked 
inside  my  Horace  since  the  day  I  took  the  final  exam  in 
it !  I  wouldn't  dream  of  doing  it !  What  would  business 
come  to  if  everybody  sagged  back  like  that?  You  don't 
seem  to  realize  what  business  is,  modern  business.  It's 
not  just  soulless  materialistic  money-making,  it's  the 
great,  big,  wide  road  that  leads  human  beings  to  progress ! 
It's  what  lets  humanity  get  a  chance  to  satisfy  its  wants, 
and  get  more  wants,  and  satisfy  them,  and  get  more, 
and  conquer  the  world  from  pole  to  pole.  It's  what  gives 
men,  grown  men,  with  big  muscles,  obstacles  of  their 
size  to  get  through.  It  gives  them  problems  that  take 
all  their  strength  and  brain  power  to  solve,  that  keeps 
them  fit  and  pink  and  tiptoe  with  ambition  and  zip,  and 
prevents  them  from  lying  down  and  giving  up  when  they 
see  a  hard  proposition  coming  their  way,  such  as  chang 
ing  a  small  factory  into  a  big  one  and  keeping  the  prod- 


A  FAIR  EXCHANGE  105 

uct  up  to  standard.  Business,  modern  business  keeps  a 
man  alive  so  that  when  he  sees  a  problem  like  that  he 
doesn't  give  a  groan  and  go  and  prune  his  roses,  he  just 
tears  right  in  and  does  it ! " 

Monsieur  Requine  listened  to  the  translation  of  this 
impassioned  credo  with  the  expression  of  judicial  cqn- 
sideration  which  was  evidently  the  habitual  one  upon  his 
face.  At  the  end  he  stroked  his  beard  meditatively  and 
looked  into  space  for  a  time  before  answering.  When 
he  spoke,  it  was  with  a  mildness  and  quiet  which  made 
him  indeed  seem  much  the  older  of  the  two,  a  certain 
patient  good  humor  which  would  have  been  impossible 
to  the  other  man.  "  Mr.  Hale,  you  say  that  my  concep 
tion  of  life  looks  like  laziness  to  you.  Do  you  know  how 
yours  looks  to  me  ?  Like  a  circle  of  frenzied  worshipers 
around  a  fiery  Moloch,  into  whose  maw  they  cast  every 
thing  that  makes  life  sweet  and  livable,  leisure,  love,  af 
fection,  appreciation  of  things  rare  and  fine.  My  friend, 
humanity  as  a  whole  will  never  be  worth  more  than  the 
lives  of  its  individuals  are  worth,  and  it  takes  many, 
many  things  to  make  individual  lives  worth  while.  It 
takes  a  mixture,  and  it  needs,  among  other  elements,  some 
quiet,  some  peace,  some  leisure,  some  occupation  with 
things  of  pure  beauty  like  my  roses,  some  fellowship 
with  great  minds  of  the  past.  .  „  . "  His  eyes  took  on  a 
dreamy  deepening  glow.  "  Sometimes  as  I  dig  the  earth 
among  my  fruit-trees,  the  old,  old  earth,  a  sentence  from 
Epictetus,  or  from  Montaigne  comes  into  my  head,  all 
at  once  luminous  as  I  never  saw  it  before.  I  have  a 


io6  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

vision  of  things  very  wide,  very  free,  very  fine.  Al 
most,  for  a  moment,  Mr.  Hale,  almost  for  a  moment  I 
feel  that  I  understand  life." 

The  American  stood  up  to  go  with  a  gesture  of  final 
ity.  He  put  his  hat  firmly  on  his  head  and  said  in 
pitying  valedictory :  "  Monsieur  Requine,  you're  on  the 
wrong  track.  Take  it  from  me  that  nobody  can  under 
stand  life.  The  best  thing  to  do  with  life  is  to  live 
it!" 

The  Frenchman,  still  seated,  still  philosophic,  made  a 
humorous  gesture.  "  Ah,  there  are  as  many  different 
opinions  as  there  are  men  about  what  that  means,  to  '  live 
life ' ! " 

In  the  cab  going  back  to  Paris  the  American  said  little. 
Once  he  remarked  almost  to  himself,  "  The  thing  I  can't 
get  over  is  that  his  damned  cream  is  better  than  anything 
we  make." 

The  French  official  emerged  from  a  thoughtful  silence 
of  his  own  to  comment :  "  Mr.  Hale,  the  generosity  of 
that  remark  is  only  equaled  by  its  perspicacity!  It 
makes  me  more  than  ever  concerned  for  the  future  of 
French  commerce." 

That  evening  Monsieur  Requine  was  stooping  over  a 
dwarf-apple  tree,  string  in  one  hand,  pruning  shears  in 
the  other.  He  was  clipping  away  all  except  one  of  the 
vigorous  young  shoots.  That  one  he  then  laid  along  a 
wire,  strung  about  a  foot  from  the  ground  and  tied  it 


A  FAIR  EXCHANGE  107 

fast  at  several  points  so  that  in  growing  it  would  fol 
low  the  exact  line  traced  by  the  horizontal  wire.  When 
he  finished  he  gathered  up  all  the  clipped  shoots,  put 
them  under  his  arm,  and  stood  looking  at  the  severely 
disciplined  little  tree,  which  did  not  look  in  the  least  like 
a  tree  any  more.  The  sight  apparently  suggested  an 
analogy  to  his  mind,  for  he  said  in  the  tone  of  one  who 
makes  an  admission :  "  It's  true  one  does  it  for  apple- 
trees  and  vines."  After  considering  this  for  a  moment, 
he  shook  his  head  with  decision,  "  But  not  for  human 
beings,  no." 

And  yet  his  brow  was  far  from  clear  as  he  be 
took  himself  to  the  stone  bench  at  the  end  of  the  gar 
den. 

When  his  wife  went  out  later  to  join  him,  she  missed 
the  glow  of  his  pipe  and  inquired,  a  little  troubled, 
"  Why,  Rene,  you've  forgotten  to  light  your  pipe ! 
what's  the  matter?" 

"  Adele,  do  you  remember,  just  before  the  order  for 
mobilization  came,  how  Robert  wanted  to  travel  a  year 
in  America  to  study  American  business  and  to  see  some 
thing  of  other  conditions  ?  Perhaps  I  was  wrong  not  to 
consent.  I've  been  sitting  here  thinking  it  over.  Per 
haps  when  he  comes  back  [they  always  forced  themselves 
to  say  "  when  "  and  never  "  if  "]  perhaps  we  would  better 
let  him  go,  before  he  settles  down  to  take  my  place." 
He  took  her  hand  and  held  it  for  a  moment.  "  Do  you 
know,  Adele,  after  all,  the  world  changes,  perhaps  more 
than  we  realize,  here  in  Versailles." 


io8  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

That  evening  Mr.  Hale  sat  in  his  hotel  bedroom  with 
all  the  electric  lights  blazing,  and  filled  sheet  after  sheet 
with  elaborate  calculations.  He  was  concerned  with  an 
important  detail  of  transatlantic  transportation  to  which 
he  did  not  believe  half  enough  attention  had  been  paid : 
the  question  as  to  what  form  of  carrier  is  the  best  for 
certain  breakable  objects  which  he  was  arranging  to  send 
in  large  quantities  into  the  States.  The  quantities  were 
so  large  that  if  he  could  effect  a  small  saving  of  space, 
with  no  increase  of  the  breakage  per  cent.,  the  sum-total 
would  be  considerable. 

He  figured  out  the  relative  cubic  contents  in  boxes 
of  a  given  dimension  and  in  barrels,  having  always  had 
a  leaning  towards  barrels  himself.  He  looked  up  tech 
nical  tables  as  to  the  relative  weight  of  sawdust,  pow 
dered  cork,  and  excelsior,  together  with  the  statistics 
as  to  the  relative  amount  of  breakage  with  each  sort 
of  packing.  His  days  were  so  filled  with  "  seeing  peo 
ple  "  that  he  often  thought  the  evenings  were  the  only 
times  he  had  to  do  "  real  work,"  the  careful,  minute, 
infinitely  patient,  and  long-headed  calculations  which  had 
made  him  the  wealthy  man  he  was. 

The  room  was  very  hot  and  close,  with  all  its  win 
dows  and  shutters  closed  and  its  curtains  drawn  to  keep 
the  light  from  showing  in  the  street,  a  recent  air-raid 
having  tightened  up  the  regulations  about  lights.  The 
American's  face  was  flushed,  his  eyes  hot  and  smarting, 
his  collar  first  wilted,  and  then  laid  aside.  But  he  was 
accustomed  to  pay  small  heed  to  discomforts  when  there 


A  FAIR  EXCHANGE  109 

was  work  to  be  done,  and  continued  obstinately  strug 
gling  with  the  problems  of  cubic  feet  contained  in  a 
compartment  of  a  ship's  hold  of  given  dimensions  with 
given  curves  to  the  sides.  The  curve  of  the  sides  gave 
him  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  as  he  had  quite  forgotten 
the  formulae  of  abstract  mathematics  which  would  have 
solved  the  question,  never  having  concerned  himself  with 
abstract  mathematics  since  the  day  he  had  taken  the  final 
examination  in  that  subject. 

He  sat  up,  wiping  his  forehead,  rubbing  his  eyes. 
Behind  the  lids,  for  an  instant  shut,  there  swam  before 
his  eyes  the  garden  in  which  he  had  sat  that  afternoon, 
green  and  hidden  and  golden.  The  perfume  from  the 
roses  floated  again  about  him. 

He  opened  his  eyes  on  the  gaudy,  banal  hotel  bedroom, 
cruelly  lighted  with  the  hard  gaze  of  the  unveiled  electric 
bulbs.  He  felt  very  tired. 

"  I've  half  a  notion  to  call  that  enough  for  to-night," 
he  said  to  himself,  standing  up  from  the  table. 

He  snapped  off  the  electric  lights  and  opened  the  shut 
ters.  A  clear,  cool  breath  of  outdoor  air  came  in  si 
lently,  filling  the  room  and  his  lungs.  The  moonlight  lay 
in  a  wide  pool  at  his  feet  and  on  the  balcony  before  his 
window.  He  hesitated  a  moment,  glanced  out  at  the 
sky,  and  pulled  an  armchair  out  on  the  balcony. 

There  was  a  long  silence  while  he  puffed  at  a  cigar 
and  while  the  moon  dropped  lower.  At  first  he  went  on 
thinking  of  cubic  feet  and  relative  weights,  but  presently 
his  cigar  began  to  glow  less  redly.  After  a  time  it  went 


no  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

out  unheeded.  The  hand  which  held  it  dropped  on  the 
arm  of  the  chair,  loosely. 

The  man  stirred,  relaxed  all  his  muscles,  and  stretched 
himself  out  in  the  chair,  tipping  his  head  back  to  see  the 
stars. 

He  sat  thus  for  a  long,  long  time,  while  the  constella 
tions  wheeled  slowly  over  his  head.  Once  he  murmured 
meditatively,  "  Maybe  we  do  hit  it  up  a  little  too  fast.'* 

He  continued  looking  up  at  the  stars,  and  presently 
drew  from  the  contemplation  of  those  vast  spaces  an 
other  remark.  It  was  one  which  had  often  casually 
passed  his  lips  before,  but  never  with  the  accent  of  con 
viction.  For  never  before  had  he  believed  it.  He  said 
it  earnestly,  now,  in  the  tone  of  one  who  states  with 
respect  a  profound  and  pregnant  truth :  "  Well,  it  takes 
all  kinds  of  people  to  make  a  world." 


THE  REFUGEE 

WHEN  we  had  seen  her  last,  just  before  the  war,  she 
could  have  stood  for  the  very  type  and  symbol  of  the 
intelligent,  modern  woman ;  an  energetic  leader  for  good 
in  her  native  town  (a  bustling  industrial  center  in  the 
north  of  France);  unsentimental,  beneficent;  looking  at 
life  with  clear,  brightly  observant,  disillusioned  eyes; 
rather  quick  to  laugh  at  old-fashioned  narrowness;  a 
little  inclined  to  scoff  at  too  fervently  expressed  enthusi 
asms,  such  as  patriotism;  very  broad  in  her  sympathies, 
very  catholic  in  her  tastes,  tolerant  as  to  the  beliefs  of 
others,  radical  as  to  her  own,  above  all,  a  thoroughgoing 
internationalist;  physically  in  the  prime  of  her  life,  with 
a  splendid,  bold  vigor  in  all  her  movements. 

Now,  after  less  than  three  years  of  separation,  she  sat 
before  us,  white-haired,  gaunt,  shabby,  her  thin  face  of 
a  curious  grayish  brown  which  none  of  us  had  ever  seen 
before,  her  thin  hands  tightly  clasped,  her  eyes  burning 
and  dry — the  only  dry  eyes  in  the  room  as  she  talked. 

Much  of  what  she  told  us  I  may  not  repeat,  for  she 
said,  with  a  quick  gesture  of  terror,  dreadful  to  see  in 
one  who  for  forty  years  had  faced  life  so  indomitably: 
"  No,  no,  don't  publish  what  I  say — or  at  least  be  very 

in 


ii2  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

careful;  choose  only  those  things  that  can't  hurt  the 
people  who  are  up  there,  still  in  '  their '  power.'* 

"  Why  not  publish  what  you  say?  "  I  asked  her,  rather 
challengingly.  "  I  don't  think  people  in  general  under 
stand  half  enough  what  the  life  of  the  invaded  provinces 
is.  One  never  sees  any  really  detailed  descriptions  of  it." 

She  answered  bitterly,  "  Doesn't  the  reason  for  that 
silence  occur  to  you  ?  " 

"  No,  it  doesn't.  I  never  have  understood  why  so  little 
is  given  to  the  public  about  the  sufferings  of  the  invaded 
populations." 

She  looked  at  me  strangely,  the  half -exasperated,  half- 
patient  look  one  gives  to  a  child  who  asks  a  foolish, 
ignorant  question,  and  explained  wearily :  "  If  those  who 
escape  tell  what  they  have  seen  up  there,  those  who  are 
left  suffer  even  worse  torments.  *  They '  have  spies 
everywhere,  you  know ;  no,  that's  not  melodramatic  non 
sense,  as  I  would  have  thought  it  three  years  ago,  it's  a 
literal  fact.  Very  probably  that  little  messenger-boy  who 
brought  the  letter  in  here  a  moment  ago  is  one.  Very 
probably  your  baker  is  one.  Anywhere  in  the  world 
whatever  is  printed  about  what  '  they '  do  to  our  people 
in  their  power  is  instantly  read  by  some  German  eyes, 
and  is  instantly  sent  to  German  headquarters  in  the  in 
vaded  regions.  And  it's  the  same  with  our  poor,  little, 
persistent  attempts  to  express  a  little  bit  of  what  we  feel 
for  France.  For  instance,  one  of  my  friends  who 
escaped  at  the  risk  of  her  life  told  about  how  we  tried 
in  our  orphan  asylum  to  keep  the  children  mindful  of 


THE  REFUGEE  113 

France,  how  after  closing  hours,  when  the  doors  were 
shut,  we  took  out  the  French  flag  from  its  hiding-place 
and  told  the  children  about  France  and  whatever  news 
of  the  war  we  had  managed  to  hear.  That  article  ap 
peared,  a  half -column,  in  an  obscure  provincial  news 
paper  with  no  indication  as  to  which  town  was  meant. 
In  less  than  two  weeks,  from  German  headquarters  in 
Brussels,  went  out  a  sweeping  order  to  search  to  the  last 
corner  of  the  cellar  every  orphan  asylum  in  the  invaded 
regions.  It  was  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  when  the 
searching  squad  in  our  town  knocked  at  the  doors.  The 
flag  was  found,  and  our  little  collection  of  patriotic 
French  recitations;  and  before  dawn  the  superintendent, 
a  splendid  woman  of  fifty-seven,  the  salt  of  the  earth, 
had  disappeared.  She  was  sent  to  a  prison  camp  in  Ger 
many.  Three  months  later  we  heard  she  was  dead.  Do 
you  understand  now  why  you  must  not  repeat  most  of 
what  I  tell  you,  must  give  no  clue  as  to  how  we  hide  our 
letters,  how  we  get  news  from  France;  above  all,  say 
nothing  that  could  give  any  idea  of  who  I  am?  '  They  ' 
would  do  such  dreadful  things  to  Marguerite  and  little 
Julien  and  old  Uncle  Henri  if  '  they '  knew  that  I  have 
talked  of  the  life  there,  of  what  '  they '  have  done  to  our 
people." 

No,  until  the  world  turns  over  and  we  have  awakened 
from  the  hideous  nightmare  no  one  may  speak  aloud  of 
certain  matters  up  there  in  Belgium  and  in  the  invaded 
provinces  of  France.  But  there  are  some  things  she  told 
us  which  I  may  pass  on  to  you,  and  I  think  you  ought 


H4  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

to  know  them.  I  think  we  all  ought  to  know  more  than 
we  do  of  what  life  is  to  the  people  who  are  awaiting 
deliverance  at  our  hands.  There  are  certain  portions  of 
her  narration,  certain  detached  pictures,  brief  dialogues 
and  scenes,  which  may  be  set  down  in  her  own  words. 
Your  imagination  must  fill  in  the  gaps. 

"  The  first  months  were  the  worst — and  the  best.  The 
worst  because  we  could  not  believe  at  first  that  war  was 
there,  the  stupid,  imbecile  anachronism  we  had  thought 
buried  with  astrology  and  feudalism.  For  me  it  was  like 
an  unimaginably  huge  roller  advancing  slowly,  heavily, 
steadily,  to  crush  out  our  lives.  During  the  day,  as  I 
worked  with  the  wounded,  I  threw  all  my  will  power  into 
the  effort  to  disbelieve  in  that  inexorable  advance.  I  said 
to  myself:  'No,  it's  not  possible!  They  can't  have  in 
vaded  Belgium  after  their  promises!  Modern  peoples 
don't  do  that  sort  of  thing.  No,  it's  not  possible  that 
Louvain  is  burned!  Wild  rumors  are  always  afloat  in 
such  times.  I  must  keep  my  head  and  not  be  credulous. 
The  Germans  are  a  highly  civilized  people  who  would 
not  dream  of  such  infamies  as  those  they  are  being  ac 
cused  of.'  All  that  I  said  to  myself,  naively,  by  day.  At 
night,  every  hour,  every  half -hour,  I  started  up  from 
sleep,  drenched  in  cold  sweat,  dreaming  that  the  crushing 
roller  was  about  to  pass  over  us.  Then  it  came,  it  passed, 
it  crushed. 

"  But  there  were  other,  better  things  about  those  first 
months.  For  one  thing,  we  had  hope  still.  We  hoped 
constantly  for  deliverance.  Every  morning  I  said  to  the 


THE  REFUGEE  115 

girl  who  brought  the  milk,  'Are  they  here  yet?' 
*  They '  meant  the  French  troops  coming  to  deliver 
us.  Yes,  at  first  we  expected  them  from  one  day  to  the 
next.  Then  from  one  week  to  the  next,  then  from  one 
month  to  the  next.  Finally,  now,  we  have  no  strength 
left  for  anything  but  silent  endurance.  Besides  that  hope, 
which  kept  us  alive  those  first  months,  we  were  not  yet 
in  that  windowless  prison  which  '  they '  have  succeeded 
in  making  our  own  country  to  us.  We  had  news  of 
France  and  of  the  outside  world  through  the  French  and 
English  prisoners.  They  were  brought  into  our  impro 
vised  hospital  to  have  their  wounds  dressed  before  they 
were  put  on  the  train  to  be  sent  forward  to  their  German 
prisons.  As  we  cared  for  them  we  could  get  news  of 
the  battles;  sometimes  we  heard  through  them  of  the 
men  of  our  families;  always  they  were  a  link  with  the 
world  outside.  We  did  not  know  what  a  priceless  boon 
that  was. 

"  But  even  this  slight  contact  was  soon  forbidden  us. 
We  showed  too  openly  the  comfort  it  brought  us.  Free 
people,  as  we  had  always  been,  we  were  not  then  trained, 
as  tyranny  since  has  trained  us,  to  the  wretched  arts  of 
secrecy.  We  did  too  much  for  those  prisoners.  The 
people  in  the  streets  crowded  about  them  too  eagerly, 
showed  them  too  many  kindnesses.  '  They  '  decided  that 
our  one  link  with  the  outside  world  must  be  broken. 
Fewer  and  fewer  prisoners  were  sent;  finally  we  saw 
none — for  weeks  and  weeks  none  at  all.  We  knew  noth 
ing  but  what  '  they '  told  us,  saw  no  other  world,  were 


n6  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

hypnotized  almost  into  believing  that  no  other  world 
existed. 

"  The  last  ones  who  came  through — that  is  one  of  my 
memories.  We  never  knew  by  what  chance  they  were 
sent  through  our  town.  One  day  we  looked,  and  there 
in  our  street  were  half  a  dozen  French  soldiers,  with 
bloody  heads  and  arms,  limping  along  between  Boche 
guards  on  their  way  to  the  hospital.  All  our  people  rose 
like  a  great  wave  and  swept  towards  them.  The  guards 
reversed  their  rifles  and  began  clubbing  with  their  butt 
ends — clubbing  the  old  women  who  tried  to  toss  food  to 
the  prisoners,  clubbing  the  little  children  who  stretched 
out  handfuls  of  chocolate,  clubbing  the  white-haired  men 
who  thrust  cigarettes  into  the  pockets  of  the  torn,  stained 
French  uniforms. 

"  We  were  beginning  to  practise  some  of  the  humiliat 
ing  arts  of  a  captive  people  then;  we  remembered  that 
shouting  in  the  streets  is  not  allowed,  that  no  French 
voice  must  be  heard  in  that  French  town,  and  in  all  that 
straining,  pressing,  yearning  crowd  there  was  not  a 
sound,  not  even  a  murmur  of  joy,  when  the  Boche  guards 
occasionally  relaxed  their  vigilance  for  a  moment  and 
some  of  our  presents  reached  the  prisoners. 

"  Then  they  came  to  the  hospital — it  was  a  great  man 
sion  before  the  war — and  went  limping  painfully  through 
the  broad  doors  and  up  the  long  stone  staircase.  Outside 
the  doors  stood  the  military  car  which  was  to  take  them 
to  the  station — stood  the  Boche  guards — and  the  crowd, 
silent,  motionless,  waiting  for  the  moment  when  those 


THE  REFUGEE  117 

soldiers  who  stood  for  France  should  reappear.  All 
demonstrations  of  feeling  were  forbidden  by  the  in 
vaders,  yes,  but  there  was  no  demonstration — only  a  great 
silent  crowd  waiting.  The  Boche  guards  looked  about 
them  uneasily,  but  there  was  no  violation  of  any  order 
to  report.  Every  one  waited  silently.  Twilight  fell, 
darkness  fell,  the  crowd  grew  larger  and  larger,  filled 
the  street,  but  gave  no  further  sign  of  life.  Not  one  of 
'  their '  rules  was  broken,  but  as  far  as  we  could  see  there 
were  upturned  faces,  white  in  the  dusk.  An  hour  passed, 
two  hours  passed,  and  then  the  moment  was  there.  The 
lights  flared  up  in  the  great  hall  of  the  hospital — all  the 
lights  at  once,  as  if  to  do  justice  to  a  grand  fete,  an 
occasion  of  supreme  honor.  At  the  top  of  the  stairway, 
very  pale  in  that  great  light,  with  bandaged  heads 
and  arms,  appeared  those  soldiers  who  stood  for 
France. 

"  From  all  that  silent,  rigidly  self-controlled  crowd 
went  up  a  sigh  like  a  great  stir  of  the  ocean.  The  pris 
oners  came  limping  down  the  stairway.  France  was 
passing  there  before  our  eyes,  perhaps  for  the  last  time. 
A  thousand  handkerchiefs  fluttered  as  silent  salute  to 
France,  a  thousand  heads  were  bared  to  her.  The  weary 
soldiers  stood  very  erect  and  returned  a  silent  military 
salute.  In  their  prison  car  they  passed  slowly  along  be 
tween  the  dense  ranks  of  their  fellow-countrymen,  look 
ing  deeply,  as  though  they  too  thought  it  might  be  for 
the  last  time,  into  those  French  eyes.  Then  they  were 
gone.  We  had  not  broken  one  of  '  their  '  rules — not  one. 


n8  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

But  '  they '  never  allowed  another  French  soldier  to  pass 
through  our  town. 

"  Once  after  that  we  had  a  passing  glimpse  of  English 
soldiers,  a  group  of  wretchedly  ill  men,  with  their  wounds 
uncared  for,  stumbling  along  to  the  station.  They  were 
not  taken  to  the  hospital  to  be  cared  for ;  '  they '  are 
always  much  harder  on  the  English  prisoners  than  on 
any  others.  Those  were  the  days  early  in  the  war,  when 
there  were  still  things  to  buy  in  the  shops,  when  we  still 
had  money  to  spend.  How  we  all  rushed  to  buy  good 
chocolate,  cigarettes!  How  desperately  we  tried  to 
throw  them  to  the  prisoners !  But  there  was  no  relaxa 
tion,  that  time,  of  the  guard.  Not  once  did  we  succeed. 
There  was  a  double  line  of  guards  that  day,  and  they 
held  us  far,  far  at  a  distance  with  their  rifle  butts.  It 
was  horrible — the  silence  of  the  crowd,  rigorously  ob 
serving  the  rule  against  demonstrations  of  any  sort;  not 
a  sound  except  the  thud  of  rifle  butts  on  human  flesh. 
Old  M.  B had  his  arm  broken  that  day. 

"  With  my  hands  full  of  cigarettes  and  chocolate,  I 
followed  them  all  the  way  to  the  station,  my  heart  burn 
ing  with  pity  for  the  poor  men  who  looked  at  us  with 
such  sick,  tired,  despairing,  hungry  eyes.  We  threw 
them  what  we  dared.  Nothing  reached  them — nothing. 
At  the  station  they  waited,  fainting  with  fatigue,  with 
loss  of  blood,  with  hunger,  with  thirst,  ringed  around 
with  soldiers,  bayonets  fixed.  There  we  stood,  we  women 
and  children  and  old  men,  our  hands  full  of  food  and 
comforts — no,  you  never  know  how  sickeningly  your 


THE  REFUGEE  119 

heart  can  throb  and  still  go  on  beating.  I  had  never 
thought  I  could  hate  as  I  did  in  that  hour,  a  helpless 
spectator  of  that  unnecessary  cruelty.  Since  then  I  have 
had  many  lessons  in  how  deeply  even  a  modern  woman 
can  be  forced  to  hate. 

"  The  train  came,  the  wounded  men  were  driven 
aboard  their  cattle  car.  The  train  disappeared.  They 
were  gone.  I  walked  home  smiling — we  never  let '  them  ' 
see  how  '  their '  tortures  make  us  suffer.  Later  Julienr 
my  little  Julien — he  was  twelve  then — found  me  still 
weeping  furiously.  He  bent  over  me,  his  little  body  all 
tense  and  fierce.  '  Don't  cry  so,  auntie !  Don't  cry  so ! 
It  won't  last.  It  will  soon  be  over/ 

"  That  was  two  years  ago. 

"  None  of  us  Frenchwomen  were  allowed  to  stay  long 
in  hospital  work.  For  one  reason  or  another,  we  were 
all  forbidden  to  go  on  caring  for  the  wounded.  I  had 
the  honor  of  being  the  very  first  to  be  put  out  of  the  door. 

"  One  of  the  officers  in  charge  said  to  me  one  day, 
some  four  or  five  months  after  the  beginning,  '  Ah, 
madame,  we  shall  soon  be  good  friends  now.' 

"  The  idea  made  me  fall  a  step  backward.  '  What, 
monsieur  ?  What  do  you  mean  ?  ' 

"  '  Yes,  France  and  Germany  will  soon  be  friends.  I 
know  with  absolute  certainty  that  Germany  has  offered 
a  third  of  Belgium  to  France  and  that  France  is  more 
than  satisfied  to  accept  and  end  the  war.' 

"  That  is  always  one  of  the  horrors  up  there.    '  They  * 


120  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

can  tell  you  any  news  they  please  as  '  absolute  certainties/ 
Since  we  know  nothing  of  what  is  going  on  except  what 
they  choose  to  tell  us,  we  have  no  proofs  to  fling  back  at 
them ;  no  proofs  but  moral  ones,  and  '  they  '  find  moral 
proofs  ridiculous,  of  course. 

"I  stiffened  and  said,  *  No,  monsieur.  No;  France 
will  never  do  that,  never!  You  cannot  understand  why 
France  will  never  do  it,  nor  why  I  am  sure  that  she  never 
will.  But  it  is  true.' 

"  He  laughed  a  little,  as  you  would  laugh  at  a  child's 
impractical  notions,  and  said :  '  Oh,  but  France  has  done 
it,  madame!  You  will  see  the  announcement  in  a  few 
days/ 

"  That  cool  assumption,  my  helplessness  to  refute  him 
with  facts,  made  me  for  an  instant  beside  myself.  I 
said,  very  hotly:  '  Monsieur,  if  France  ever  does  that,  I 
will  renounce  my  French  blood.  I  will  make  myself  an 
American.'  He  was  still  smiling  indulgently  at  my  heat. 
'  Oh,  why,  madame  ?  Why  ?  ' 

"  '  Because  if  France  should  do  that,  it  would  be  as 
much  a  disgrace  for  an  honest  person  to  be  French  as  now 
to  be  German.' 

"  He  all  but  struck  me  with  his  whip. 

"  And  five  minutes  later,  still  in  my  nurse's  uniform, 
I  was  standing  in  the  street,  with  the  door  of  the  hos 
pital  closed  behind  me.  I  can't  say  I  was  particularly 
regretful,  either." 

She  looked  down  at  her  skirt  of  threadbare,  coarse 
black  stuff.  "Do  you  know  where  I  got  this  skirt? 


THE  REFUGEE  121 

After  a  year  of  war  I  had  nothing,  nothing  left  in  my 
wardrobe.  We  gave  away  to  the  poorer  ones  every  gar 
ment  we  could  possibly  spare.  And  there  was  nothing, 
nothing  left  in  any  of  the  shops  to  buy.  And  I  had  no 
money  to  buy  if  there  had  been.  How  was  I  going  to 
get  an  overcoat  for  Julien  and  a  skirt  for  myself?  The 
scrubwoman  in  Uncle  Henri's  office  noticed  the  patches 
and  darns  on  my  last  skirt,  and  said  the  American  Com 
mittee  had  some  clothes  to  distribute.  I  went  there — 
yes,  I — holding  out  my  hand  like  any  beggar.  Bless 
Americans !  There  is  no  shame  in  being  helped  by  them ! 
They  gave  me  there  an  overcoat  that  I  made  over  for 
Julien  and  enough  of  this  cloth  for  a  skirt.  It  is  the 
only  one  I  have  had  for  two  years.  Do  you  know  what 
I  saw  all  the  time  I  sat  sewing  on  that  charity  garment, 
come  from  so  far?  Across  the  street  from  our  house  is 

the  great  warehouse  where  the  cloth   from  the  

woolen  mills  was  stored.  All  day  long  German  automo 
bile  trucks  stood  in  front  of  that  building,  while  from 
the  windows  German  soldiers  threw  down  bale  after  bale 
of  cloth.  As  soon  as  a  truck  was  full  it  would  start 
forward  on  its  journey  to  the  station,  where  the  cloth 
was  loaded  on  trains  and  sent  to  Germany.  An  empty 
one  immediately  took  its  place.  Heavy  woolens,  light 
woolens,  blankets,  cashmeres,  flannels,  serges,  twill,  black, 
brown,  blue,  white,  figured — hundreds  and  hundreds  of 
bales.  I  never  knew  there  were  so  many  kinds  of  woolen 
cloth.  I  never  had  seen  so  much  all  together  in  my  life 
as  I  saw  tossed  down  from  the  windows  of  that  four- 


122  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

story  building  during  those  three  days.  For  it  took  three 
days  of  incessant  work  to  steal  all  that  cloth — three  long 
davs — just  the  time  it  took  me  to  prepare  those  two 
charity  garments  sent  from  America." 

She  held  up  a  thick,  square,  brownish  cracker,  and 
said :  "  Look  well  at  that.  You  have  never  seen  anything 
more  important  to  human  lives.  That  is  the  free  Amer 
ican  biscuit.  It  is  distributed  at  ten  every  morning  to 
every  school-child,  to  every  teacher,  in  the  region  under 
German  rule.  None  have  had  enough  to  eat.  There 
are  no  biscuits  distributed  on  Sundays  and  vacation  days. 
Those  are  hard  days  for  the  children  to  live  through. 
They  beg  desperately  to  go  to  school,  even  when  they 
are  sick,  so  they  may  not  miss  their  biscuit.  It  is  by 
far  the  best  thing  they  have  to  eat  all  day,  the  most 
palatable,  the  only  complete  food.  The  change  in  the 
school-children  since  they  have  had  this  added  to  their 
diet — it  is  miraculous !  The  experts  say  the  biscuits  are 
a  carefully  compounded  product  of  many  grains,  which 
make  it  a  complete  aliment.  We  know  better  than  that. 
It  is  manna  from  heaven. 

"  And  here,"  she  held  up  a  red  woolen  knitted  cap, 
such  as  American  school-children  wear  in  small  towns 
during  the  winter.  "  Somehow  the  American  Committees 
managed  so  that  there  was  such  a  cap  for  every  one  of 
us.  They  have  become  the  national  head-dress.  Hun 
dreds  and  hundreds  of  them — and  every  one  knit  in 
America  and  sent  to  us.  Bless  America ! 


THE  REFUGEE  123 

"  Our  lights?  There  was  soon,  of  course,  no  kerosene 
for  us,  no  fats  to  make  candles.  And  you  know  the  long, 
long,  dark  winters  in  the  north  of  France?  Do  you 
know  what  we  did,  praying  that  the  American  Committee 
would  forgive  us  and  realize  that  blackness  is  too  dreadful 
to  people  whose  nerves  are  almost  worn  through?  We 
set  aside  a  part  of  the  lard  and  bacon  the  Committee 
provided  for  us;  we  melted  it,  put  home-made  cotton 
wicks  in  it,  and — there  we  had  a  light,  a  little  glimmering 
taper,  but  enough  to  save  our  reason  in  the  long  evenings. 
Bless  America ! 

"  The  schools  have  kept  on,  you  know ;  every  teacher 
at  her  post,  not  a  day  missed  (even  when  the  town  was 
bombarded).  Every  year  the  examinations  have  been 
set — they  use  old  examination  papers  sent  from  Paris 
before  the  war — and  diplomas  have  been  given.  And 
besides  that,  at  home  we  have  tried  our  best  to  keep  the 
life  of  our  children  what  the  life  of  French  children 
ought  to  be.  I  remember  last  year,  during  the  summer, 
Aunt  Louise  taught  a  group  of  children  in  our  part  of 
the  town  to  sing  the  '  Marseillaise/  The  studio  of  my 
cousin  Jean  is  at  the  back  of  the  house  and  high  up,  so 
that  she  thought  the  children's  voices  could  not  be  heard 
from  the  street.  The  Mayor  heard  of  what  she  was 
doing,  and  sent  word  that  he  would  like  to  hear  them 
sing.  The  news  spread  around  rapidly.  When  he  ar 
rived  with  the  city  council,  coming  in  one  by  one,  as 
though  merely  to  make  a  call,  they  found  the  big  studio 
full  to  overflowing  with  their  fellow-citizens — the  old 


124  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

men  and  women  who  are  all  the  fellow-citizens  left  there. 
There  must  have  been  two  or  three  hundred  of  them,  the 
most  representative  people  of  the  town,  all  in  black,  all 
so  silent,  so  old  and  sad.  The  children  were  quite  abashed 
by  such  an  audience,  and  filed  up  on  the  little  platform 
shyly — our  poor,  thin,  shabby,  white-faced  children,  fifty 
or  sixty  of  them. 

(f  There  was  a  pause,  the  children  half  afraid  to  be 
gin,  the  rest  of  us  thinking  uneasily  that  we  were  running 
a  great  risk.  Suppose  the  children's  voices  should  be 
heard  in  the  street,  after  all.  Suppose  the  German  police 
should  enter  and  find  us  assembled  thus.  It  would  mean 
horrors  and  miseries  for  every  family  represented.  The 
Mayor  stood  near  the  children  to  give  them  the  signal  to 
begin — and  dared  not.  We  were  silent,  our  hearts  beat 
ing  fast. 

"  Then  all  at  once  the  littlest  ones  began  in  their 
high,  sweet  treble  those  words  that  mean  France,  that 
mean  liberty,  that  mean  life  itself  to  us : 

' e  Allans.,  cnfants  de  la  Patrie! '  they  sang,  tilting  their 
heads  back  like  little  birds;  and  all  the  other  children 
followed : 

'  Against  us  floats  the  red  flag  of  tyranny ! ' 

r<  We  were  on  our  feet  in  an  instant.  It  was  the  first 
time  any  of  us  had  heard  it  sung  since — since  our  men 
marched  away. 

"  I  began  to  tremble  all  over,  so  that  I  could  hardly 
stand.  Every  one  there  stared  up  at  the  children;  every 
one's  face  was  deadly  white  to  his  lips. 


THE  REFUGEE  125 

(t  The  children  sang  on — sang  the  chorus,  sang  the 
second  stanza. 

"  When  they  began  the  third,  '  Sacred  love  of  our 
fatherland,  sustain  our  avenging  arms ! '  the  Mayor's  old 
face  grew  livid.  He  whirled  about  to  the  audience,  his 
white  hair  like  a  lions  mane,  and  with  a  gesture  swept 
us  all  into  the  song. 

'  Liberty,  our  adored  liberty,  fight  for  thy  defend 
ers  ! '  There  were  three  hundred  voices  shouting  it  out, 
the  tears  streaming  down  our  cheeks.  If  a  regiment  of 
German  guards  had  marched  into  the  room,  we  would 
not  have  turned  our  heads.  Nothing  could  have  stopped 
us  then.  We  were  only  a  crowd  of  old  men  and  de 
fenseless  women  and  children,  but  we  were  all  that  was 
left  of  France  in  our  French  town. 

"  Letters  ?  You  know  '  their '  rule  is  that  none  are 
allowed,  that  we  may  neither  write  nor  receive  news  from 
our  dear  ones.  But  that  rule,  like  all  their  rules,  is  broken 
as  often  as  we  can.  There  are  numbers  of  secret  letter- 
carriers,  who  risk  their  lives  to  bring  and  take  news. 
But  it  is  horribly  risky.  If  a  letter  is  found  on  you,  you 
are  liable  to  a  crushing  fine,  or,  worse  yet,  to  imprison 
ment,  and,  if  you  hc.ve  children  or  old  people  dependent 
on  you,  you  dare  not  risk  leaving  them.  You  might  as 
well  cut  their  throats  at  once  and  spare  them  the  long 
suffering.  Even  if  the  letter  is  not  found  on  you,  there 
is  risk  if  you  try  to  send  or  receive  one.  They  are  not, 
of  course,  addressed,  so  that  if  the  letter-carrier  is  dis 
covered  all  those  to  whom  he  is  bringing  mail  may  not 


126  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

be  incriminated.  But  if  he  is  caught  '  they '  always 
threaten  him  with  atrocious  punishments  which  will  be 
remitted  if  he  will  disclose  the  names  of  those  who  have 
employed  him.  Generally  the  poor  letter-carriers  are 
loyal  even  to  death,  suffering  everything  rather  than  be 
tray  their  trust.  But  some  of  them  are  only  young  boys, 
physically  undermined  by  hardship  and  insufficient  food, 
like  all  our  people,  and  they  have  not  the  physical 
strength  to  hold  out  against  days  of  starvation,  or  flog 
gings,  or  exposure — naked — to  intense  cold.  They  give 
way,  reveal  the  names  of  the  people  who  are  receiving 
letters — and  then  there  are  a  dozen  more  homes  desolate, 
a  dozen  more  mothers  imprisoned,  a  dozen  more  groups 
of  children  left. 

"  And  yet  we  all  used  to  get  letters  before  the  rules 
became  so  terribly  strict  as  at  present.  I  have  had  six 
in  the  three  years — just  six.  They  were  from  my  mother 
— I  could  not  live  without  knowing  whether  my  old 
maman  was  alive  or  not.  Curious,  isn't  it,  to  think  that 
I  would  have  been  imprisoned  at  hard  labor  if  any  one 
liad  known  that  I  had  received  a  letter  from  my  old 
mother  ? 

"  Of  course  you  must  never  carry  them  on  you,  if  out 
of  doors,  for  there  is  always  a  chance  that  you  may  be 
searched.  On  the  trolley  line  between  our  town  and  the 
suburb,  -  — ,  which  I  used  to  take  once  a  week  to  go  to 
see  Pauline  when  she  was  so  ill,  it  often  happened.  The 
car  would  stop  at  a  sudden  cry  of  'Halle!'  and  soldiers 
with  bayonets  would  herd  us  into  a  nearby  house. 


THE  REFUGEE  127 

Women — German  women,  brought  from  Germany  es 
pecially  for  such  work — were  waiting  for  us  women 
passengers.  We  were  forced  to  undress  entirely,  not  a 
garment  left  on  our  poor  humiliated  old  bodies,  and 
everything  was  searched,  our  purses  opened,  our  shoes 
examined,  our  stockings  turned  inside  out.  If  anything 
which  seemed  remotely  incriminating  was  found — an  old 
clipping  from  a  French  newspaper,  a  poem  which  might 
be  considered  patriotic — a  scrap  of  a  letter,  we  were  taken 
away  to  prison;  if  not,  we  were  allowed  to  dress  and  go 
on  our  way." 

We  gazed  at  her,  pale  with  incredulity.  It  was 
as  though  Americans  had  heard  that  such  treatment 
had  been  accorded  Jane  Addams  or  Margaret  De- 
land.  "  Were  you  ever  searched  in  that  way  ? "  we 
faltered. 

She  had  an  instant  of  burning  impatience  with  our 
ignorance.  "  Good  Heavens,  yes^;  many  and  many  times ! 
How  absolutely  little  idea  you  have  of  what  is  going  on 
up  there  under  their  rule!  That  was  nothing  compared 
to  many,  many  things  they  do — their  domiciliary  visits, 
for  instance.  At  any  hour  of  the  day  or  night  a  squad 
of  soldiers  knock  at  your  door  suddenly,  with  no  warn 
ing.  They  search  your  house  from  top  to  bottom,  often 
spending  three  hours  over  the  undertaking.  They  look 
into  every  drawer,  take  down  all  the  clothes  from  the 
hooks  in  the  closets,  look  under  the  carpets,  behind  the 
^bookcases,  shake  out  all  the  soiled  clothes  in  the  laundry 
bag,  pull  out  everything  from  under  the  kitchen  sink, 


ia8  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

read  every  scrap  of  paper  in  your  drawer  and  in  your 
waste-paper  basket — it's  incredible.  You  watch  them, 
with  perfect  stupefaction  at  the  energy  and  ingenuity 
they  put  into  their  shameful  business.  And  what  they 
find  as  '  evidence '  against  you !  It  is  as  stupefying. 
They  always  read  every  page  of  the  children's  school 
copy-books,  for  instance,  and  if  they  find  a  '  composition  ' 
on  patriotism,  even  expressed  in  the  most  general  terms, 
they  tear  out  those  pages  and  take  them  away  to  be  filed 
as  '  evidence/ 

"  You  must  know  that  they  can  and  do  often  enter 
for  these  searching  visits  at  night  when  every  one  is  in 
bed;  perhaps  you  can  guess  how  tensely  the  mothers  of 
young  girls  endeavor  not  to  offend  against  the  least  of 
'  their '  innumerable  rules,  lest  they  be  sent  away  into 
exile  and  leave  their  children  defenseless.  But  it  is  al 
most  impossible  to  avoid  offending  against  some  rule  or 
other.  Anything  serves  as  ground  for  accusation — a  lib 
eral  book,  a  harmless  pamphlet  found  in  the  bookcase, 
the  possession  of  a  copper  object  forgotten  after  the 
summons  to  give  up  all  copper  has  gone  out,  a  piece  of 
red,  white,  and  blue  ribbon,  a  copy  of  the  *  Marseillaise/  a 
book  of  patriotic  poems ;  but,  above  all,  the  possession  of 
anything  that  serves  to  point  to  communication,  ever  so 
remote,  with  the  outside  world.  That  is  the  supreme 
crime  in  their  eyes.  A  page  of  a  French  or  English 
newspaper  is  as  dangerous  to  have  in  the  house  as  a 
stick  of  dynamite. 

"  Many  men,  women,  and  young  girls  are  now  in  a 


THE  REFUGEE 

German  prison  somewhere  for  the  crime  of  having  cir 
culated  little  pamphlets  intended  to  keep  up  the  courage 
of  the  inhabitants.  These  little  sheets  no  longer  exist, 
but  what  exists  in  spite  of  all  these  repressive  measures  is 
the  unshaken  faith  in  our  future,  the  most  utter  confi 
dence  that  the  Allies  will  rescue  us  out  of  the  hand  of 


our  enemies." 


What  she  told  us  about  the  deportations  I  may  not  re 
peat  for  fear  of  bringing  down  worse  horrors  on  the 
heads  of  those  she  left  behind.  You  may  be  thankful 
that  you  have  not  to  read  that  story. 

Only  two  incidents  am  I  permitted  to  transcribe  for 
you — two  incidents  which,  perhaps,  sum  up  the  whole 
vast  and  unimaginable  tragedy. 

"  We  have  tried,  you  know,  to  keep  the  children 
as  busy  as  possible  with  their  studies,  so  that  they  would 
not  have  leisure  to  brood  over  what  they  see  and  hear 
every  day.  I've  had  little  Marguerite  go  on  with  her 
English  lessons  steadily  and  read  as  much  English  as 
possible.  One  of  the  books  her  teacher  gave  her  was 
'  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.'  She  looked  up  from  it  one  day, 
with  a  pale  face,  and  said,  in  a  sad,  wondering  voice: 
*  Why,  auntie,  this  might  have  been  written  about  us, 
mightn't  it?  It  tells  about  things  that  happen  to  us  all 
the  time — that  we  have  seen.  The  men  who  are  flogged 
and  starved  and  killed,  the  mothers  trying  in  vain  to  fol 
low  their  daughters  into  captivity,  the  young  girls 
dragged  out  of  their  fathers'  arms — it's  all  just  like  what 
the  Germans  do  to  us,  isn't  it?' 


I3o  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

And  the  other  is  that  last  hour  at  the  railway  station, 
when  she  stood  beside  the  railway  tracks,  with  her  little 
Julien  beside  her  (he  was  fourteen  then),  and  told  him 
in  a  fierce,  choked  voice,  "  Look,  Julien !  Look,  remem 
ber!  Never  forget  what  you  are  seeing  to-day,"  as  they 
watched  the  soldiers  drive  into  the  cattle  cars  the  old 
men,  women,  and  adolescents  torn  from  their  homes 
in  such  haste  that  they  had  no  change  of  clothing,  no 
food,  often  not  even  their  hats  and  wraps.  "  We  stood 
there,  those  who  were  not  '  taken/  the  great  helpless 
crowd  of  women  and  children,  agonizing  in  that  dreadful 
silence  which  is  the  last  refuge  of  our  poor  battered 
human  dignity  up  there.  I  was  suffocating,  literally  un 
able  to  breathe.  You  do  not  know  what  hate  and  pity 
and  horror  you  can  feel  and  still  live ! 

"  The  wheels  of  the  train  began  grindingly  to  turn,  the 
train  advanced — it  could  not  have  been  more  unendur 
able  to  us  if  it  had  gone  over  our  own  bodies. 

"  And  then  some  miraculous  wind  of  high-hearted 
courage  swept  through  that  train-load  of  weak,  doomed, 
and  defenseless  human  beings.  From  every  crevice, 
from  every  crack,  waved  a  hand,  fluttered  a  handkerchief, 
and  from  the  train  with  one  voice,  the  '  Marseillaise  ' 
went  up  in  an  indomitable  shout. 

' '  Allans,  enfants  de  la  Patrie! 

"  The  sound  of  the  singing  and  the  sound  of  the  train 
died  away  in  the  distance. 


THE  REFUGEE  13 1 

"We  did  not  weep — no,  we  have  never  shown  them 
how  they  can  torture  us.  Not  a  tear  was  shed. 

"  But  the  next  day  our  insane  asylum  at  L •  was 

filled  to  overflowing  with  new  cases  of  madness." 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN 

BETWEEN  1620  and  1630  Giles  Boardman,  an  honest, 
sober,  well-to-do  English  master-builder  found  himself 
hindered  in  the  exercise  of  his  religion.  He  prayed 
a  great  deal  and  groaned  a  great  deal  more  (which  was 
perhaps  the  Puritan  equivalent  of  swearing),  but  in  the 
end  he  left  his  old  home  and  his  prosperous  business  and 
took  his  wife  and  young  children  the  long,  difficult,  dan 
gerous  ocean  voyage  to  the  New  World.  There,  to  the 
end  of  his  homesick  days,  he  fought  a  hand-to-hand  bat 
tle  with  wild  nature  to  wring  a  living  from  the  soil. 
He  died  at  fifty-four,  an  exhausted  old  man,  but  his  last 
words  were,  "  Praise  God  that  I  was  allowed  to  escape 
out  of  the  pit  digged  for  me." 

His  family  and  descendants,  condemned  irrevocably 
to  an  obscure  struggle  for  existence,  did  little  more  than 
keep  themselves  alive  for  about  a  hundred  and  thirty 
years,  during  which  time  Giles'  spirit  slept. 

In  1775  one  of  his  great-great-grandsons,  Elmer 
Boardman  by  name,  learned  that  the  British  soldiers 
were  coming  to  take  by  force  a  stock  of  gunpowder  con 
cealed  in  a  barn  for  the  use  of  the  barely  beginning 
American  army.  He  went  very  white,  but  he  kissed  his 
wife  and  little  boy  good-bye,  took  down  from  its  pegs 

132 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  133 

his  musket,  and  went  out  to  join  his  neighbors  in  re 
pelling  the  well-disciplined  English  forces.  He  lost  a 
leg  that  day  and  clumped  about  on  a  wooden  substitute 
all  his  hard-working  life;  but,  although  he  was  never 
anything  more  than  a  poor  farmer,  he  always  stood  very 
straight  with  a  smile  on  his  plain  face  whenever  the  new 
flag  of  the  new  country  was  carried  past  him  on  the 
Fourth  of  July.  He  died,  and  his  spirit  slept. 

In  1854  one  of  his  grandsons,  Peter  Boardman,  had 
managed  to  pull  himself  up  from  the  family  tradition  of 
hard-working  poverty,  and  was  a  prosperous  grocer  in 
Lawrence,  Massachusetts.  The  struggle  for  the  posses 
sion  of  Kansas  between  the  Slave  States  and  the  North 
announced  itself.  It  became  known  in  Massachusetts 
that  sufficiently  numerous  settlements  of  Northerners 
voting  for  a  Free  State  would  carry  the  day  against 
slavery  in  the  new  Territory.  For  about  a  month  Peter 
Boardman  looked  very  sick  and  yellow,  had  repeated 
violent  attacks  of  indigestion,  and  lost  more  than  fifteen 
pounds.  At  the  end  of  that  time  he  sold  out  his  grocery 
(at  the  usual  loss  when  a  business  is  sold  out)  and  took 
his  family  by  the  slow,  laborious  caravan  route  out  to 
the  little  new,  raw  settlement  on  the  banks  of  the  Kaw, 
which  was  called  Lawrence  for  the  city  in  the  East 
which  so  many  of  its  inhabitants  had  left.  Here  he 
recovered  his  health  rapidly,  and  the  look  of  distress  left 
his  face;  indeed,  he  had  a  singular  expression  of  secret 
happiness.  He  was  caught  by  the  Quantrell  raid  and 


134  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

was  one  of  those  hiding  in  the  cornfield  when  Quantrell's 
men  rode  in  and  cut  them  down  like  rabbits.  He  died 
there  of  his  wounds.  And  his  spirit  slept. 

His  granddaughter,  Ellen,  plain,  rather  sallow,  very 
serious,  was  a  sort  of  office  manager  in  the  firm  of 
Walker  and  Pennypacker,  the  big  wholesale  hardware 
merchants  of  Marshallton,  Kansas.  She  had  passed 
through  the  public  schools,  had  graduated  from  the  High 
School,  and  had  planned  to  go  to  the  State  University; 
but  the  death  of  the  uncle  who  had  brought  her  up  after 
the  death  of  her  parents  made  that  plan  impossible.  She 
learned  as  quickly  as  possible  the  trade  which  would  bring 
in  the  most  money  immediately,  became  a  good  stenog 
rapher,  though  never  a  rapid  one,  and  at  eighteen  en 
tered  the  employ  of  the  hardware  firm. 

She  was  still  there  at  twenty-seven,  on  the  day  in 
August,  1914,  when  she  opened  the  paper  and  saw  that 
Belgium  had  been  invaded  by  the  Germans.  She  read 
with  attention  what  was  printed  about  the  treaty  obliga 
tion  involved,  although  she  found  it  hard  to  understand. 
At  noon  she  stopped  before  the  desk  of  Mr.  Penny- 
packer,  the  senior  member  of  the  firm,  for  whom  she  had 
a  great  respect,  and  asked  him  if  she  had  made  out  cor 
rectly  the  import  of  the  editorial.  "  Had  the  Germans 
promised  they  wouldn't  ever  go  into  Belgium  in  war  ? " 

"  Looks  that  way,"  said  Mr.  Pennypacker,  nodding, 
and  searching  for  a  lost  paper.  The  moment  after,  he 
had  forgotten  the  question  and  the  questioner. 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  135 

Ellen  had  always  rather  regretted  not  having  been 
able  to  "  go  on  with  her  education/'  and  this  gave  her 
certain  little  habits  of  mind  which  differentiated  her 
somewhat  from  the  other  stenographers  and  typewriters 
in  the  office  with  her,  and  from  her  cousin,  with  whom 
she  shared  the  small  bedroom  in  Mrs.  Wilson's  boarding- 
house.  For  instance,  she  looked  up  words  in  the  diction 
ary  when  she  did  not  understand  them,  and  she  had  kept 
all  her  old  schoolbooks  on  the  shelf  of  the  boarding- 
house  bedroom.  Finding  that  she  had  only  a  dim  recol 
lection  of  where  Belgium  was,  she  took  down  her  old 
geography  and  located  it.  This  was  in  the  wait  for 
lunch,  which  meal  was  always  late  at  Mrs.  Wilson's. 
The  relation  between  the  size  of  the  little  country  and 
the  bulk  of  Germany  made  an  impression  on  her.  "  My! 
it  looks  as  though  they  could  just  make  one  mouthful  of 
it,"  she  remarked.  "  It's  awfully  little." 

"  Who  ?  "  asked  Maggie.     "  What  ?  " 

"  Belgium  and  Germany." 

Maggie  was  blank  for  a  moment.  Then  she  remem 
bered.  "  Oh,  the  war.  Yes,  I  know.  Mr.  Went- 
worth's  fine  sermon  was  about  it  yesterday.  War  is  the 
wickedest  thing  in  the  world.  Anything  is  better  than 
to  go  killing  each  other.  They  ought  to  settle  it  by  arbi 
tration.  Mr.  Wentworth  said  so." 

"  They  oughtn't  to  have  done  it  if  they'd  promised 
not  to,"  said  Ellen.  The  bell  rang  for  the  belated  lunch 
and  she  went  down  to  the  dining-room  even  more  se 
rious  than  was  her  habit. 


1 36  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

She  read  the  paper  very  closely  for  the  next  few  days, 
and  one  morning  surprised  Maggie  by  the  loudness  of 
her  exclamation  as  she  glanced  at  the  headlines. 

"  What's  the  matter  ?  "  asked  her  cousin.  "  Have  they 
found  the  man  who  killed  that  old  woman?"  She  her 
self  was  deeply  interested  in  a  murder  case  in  Chicago. 

Ellen  did  not  hear  her.  "  Well,  thank  goodness! " 
she  exclaimed.  "  England  is  going  to  help  France  and 
Belgium ! " 

Maggie  looked  over  her  shoulder  disapprovingly. 
"  Oh,  I  think  it's  awful !  Another  country  going  to  war ! 
England  a  Christian  nation,  too !  I  don't  see  how  Chris 
tians  can  go  to  war.  And  I  don't  see  what  call  the  Bel 
gians  had,  anyhow,  to  fight  Germany.  They  might  have 
known  they  couldn't  stand  up  against  such  a  big  coun 
try.  All  the  Germans  wanted  to  do  was  just  to  walk 
along  the  roads.  They  wouldn't  have  done  any  harm. 
Mr.  Schnitzler  was  explaining  it  to  me  down  at  the 
office." 

"  They'd  promised  they  wouldn't,"  repeated  Ellen. 
"  And  the  Belgians  had  promised  everybody  that  they 
wouldn't  let  anybody  go  across  their  land  to  pick  on 
France  that  way.  They  kept  their  promise  and  the  Ger 
mans  didn't.  It  makes  me  mad  I  I  wish  to  goodness 
our  country  would  help  them ! " 

Maggie  was  horrified.  "  Ellen  Boardman,  would  you 
want  Americans  to  commit  murder?  You'd  better  go 
to  church  with  me  next  Sunday  and  hear  Mr.  Went- 
worth  preach  one  of  his  fine  sermons." 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  137 

Ellen  did  this,  and  heard  a  sermon  on  passive  resist 
ance  as  the  best  answer  to  violence.  She  was  accus 
tomed  to  accepting  without  question  any  statement  she 
found  in  a  printed  book,  or  what  any  speaker  said  in  any 
lecture.  Also  her  mind,  having  been  uniquely  devoted 
for  many  years  to  the  problems  of  office  administration, 
moved  with  more  readiness  among  letter-files  and  card- 
catalogues  of  customers  than  among  the  abstract  ideas 
where  now,  rather  to  her  dismay,  she  began  to  find  her 
thoughts  centering.  More  than  a  week  passed  after 
hearing  that  sermon  before  she  said,  one  night  as  she  was 
brushing  her  hair :  "  About  the  Belgians — if  a  robber 
wanted  us  to  let  him  go  through  this  room  so  he  could 
get  into  Mrs.  Wilson's  room  and  take  all  her  money  and 
maybe  kill  her,  would  you  feel  all  right  just  to  snuggle 
down  in  bed  and  let  him?  Especially  if  you  had  told 
Mrs.  Wilson  that  she  needn't  ever  lock  the  door  that 
leads  into  our  room,  because  you'd  see  to  it  that  nobody 
came  through  ?  " 

"  Oh,  but,"  said  Maggie,  "  Mr.  Wentworth  says  it  is 
only  the  German  Government  that  wanted  to  invade 
Belgium,  that  the  German  soldiers  just  hated  to  do  it. 
If  you  could  fight  the  German  Kaiser,  it'd  be  all  right." 

Ellen  jumped  at  this  admission.  "  Oh,  Mr.  Went 
worth  does  think  there  are  some  cases  where  it  isn't 
enough  just  to  stand  by,  and  say  you  don't  like  it?  " 

Maggie  ignored  this.  "  He  says  the  people  who  really 
get  killed  are  only  the  poor  soldiers  that  aren't  to 
blame." 


138  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

Ellen  stood  for  a  moment  by  the  gas,  her  hair  up  in 
curl-papers,  the  light  full  on  her  plain,  serious  face,  sal 
low  above  the  crude  white  of  her  straight,  unornamented 
nightgown.  She  said,  and  to  her  own  surprise  her  voice 
shook  as  she  spoke :  "  Well,  suppose  the  real  robber 
stayed  down  in  the  street  and  only  sent  up  here  to  rob 
and  kill  Mrs.  Wilson  some  men  who  just  hated  to  do  it, 
but  were  too  afraid  of  him  not  to.  Would  you  think  it 
was  all  right  for  us  to  open  our  door  and  let  them  go 
through  without  trying  to  stop  them?" 

Maggie  did  not  follow  this  reasoning,  but  she  re 
ceived  a  disagreeable,  rather  daunting  impression  from 
the  eyes  which  looked  at  her  so  hard,  from  the  stern, 
quivering  voice.  She  flounced  back  on  her  pillow,  say 
ing  impatiently :  "  I  don't  know  what's  got  into  you, 
Ellen  Boardman.  You  look  actually  queer,  these  days! 
What  do  you  care  so  much  about  the  Belgians  for  ?  You 
never  heard  of  them  before  all  this  began !  And  every 
body  knows  how  immoral  French  people  are." 

Ellen  turned  out  the  gas  and  got  into  bed  silently. 

Maggie  felt  uncomfortable  and  aggrieved.  The  next 
time  she  saw  Mr.  Wentworth  she  repeated  the  conversa 
tion  to  him.  She  hoped  and  expected  that  the  young  min 
ister  would  immediately  furnish  her  with  a  crushing 
argument  to  lay  Ellen  low,  but  instead  he  was  silent  for 
a  moment,  and  then  said :  "  That's  rather  an  interesting 
illustration,  about  the  burglars  going  through  your  room. 
Where  does  she  get  such  ideas  ?  " 

Maggie  disavowed  with  some  heat  any  knowledge  of 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  139 

the  source  of  her  cousin's  eccentricities.  "  I  don't  know 
where!  She's  a  stenographer  downtown." 

Mr.  Went  worth  looked  thoughtful  and  walked  away, 
evidently  having  forgotten  Maggie. 

In  the  days  which  followed,  the  office-manager  of  the 
wholesale  hardware  house  more  and  more  justified  the 
accusation  of  looking  "  queer."  It  came  to  be  so  notice 
able  that  one  day  her  employer,  Mr.  Pennypacker,  asked 
her  if  she  didn't  feel  well.  "  You've  been  looking  sort 
of  under  the  weather,"  he  said. 

She  answered,  "  I'm  just  sick  because  the  United 
States  won't  do  anything  to  help  Belgium  and  France." 

Mr.  Pennypacker  had  never  received  a  more  violent 
shock  of  pure  astonishment.  "  Great  Scotland ! "  he 
ejaculated,  "  what's  that  to  you?" 

C(  Well,  I  live  in  the  United  States,"  she  advanced,  as 
though  it  were  an  argument. 

Mr.  Pennypacker  looked  at  her  hard.  It  was  the 
same  plain,  serious,  rather  sallow  face  he  had  seen  for 
years  bent  over  his  typewriter  and  his  letter-files.  But 
the  eyes  were  different — anxious,  troubled. 

"  It  makes  me  sick,"  she  repeated,  "  to  see  a  great  big 
nation  picking  on  a  little  one  that  was  only  keeping  its 
promise." 

Her  employer  cast  about  for  a  conceivable  reason  for 
the  aberration.  "  Any  of  your  folks  come  here  from 
there  ?  "  he  ventured. 

"Gracious,  no!"  cried  Ellen,  almost  as  much  shocked 
.as  Maggie  would  have  been  at  the  idea  that  there  might 


i4o  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

be  "  foreigners  "  in  her  family.  She  added :  "  But  you 
don't  have  to  be  related  to  a  little  boy,  do  you,  to  get  mad 
at  a  man  that's  beating  him  up,  especially  if  the  boy 
hasn't  done  anything  he  oughtn't  to  ? " 

Mr.  Pennypacker  stared.  "  I  don't  know  that  I  ever 
looked  at  it  that  way."  He  added :  "  I've  been  so  taken 
up  with  that  lost  shipment  of  nails,  to  tell  the  truth,  that 
I  haven't  read  much  about  the  war.  There's  always 
some  sort  of  a  war  going  on  over  there  in  Europe,  seems 
to  me."  He  stared  for  a  moment  into  space,  and  came 
back  with  a  jerk  to  the  letter  he  was  dictating. 

That  evening,  over  the  supper-table,  he  repeated  to  his 
wife  what  his  stenographer  had  said.  His  wife  asked, 
"  That  little  sallow  Miss  Boardman  that  never  has  a  word 
to  say  for  herself  ?  "  and  upon  being  told  that  it  was  the 
same,  said  wonderingly,  "  Well,  what  ever  started  her 
up,  I  wonder  ?  "  After  a  time  she  said :  ff  Is  Germany  so 
much  bigger  than  Belgium  as  all  that  ?  Pete,  go  get  your 
geography."  She  and  her  husband  and  their  High  School 
son  gazed  at  the  map.  "  It  looks  that  way,"  said  the 
father.  "  Gee !  They  must  have  had  their  nerve  with 
them !  Gimme  the  paper."  He  read  with  care  the  war- 
news  and  the  editorial  which  he  had  skipped  in  the 
morning,  and  as  he  read  he  looked  very  grave,  and  rather 
cross.  When  he  laid  the  paper  down  he  said,  impa 
tiently  :  "  Oh,  damn  the  war !  Damn  Europe,  any 
how  !  "  His  wife  took  the  paper  out  of  his  hand  and 
read  in  her  turn  the  news  of  the  advance  into  Northern 
France. 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  141 

Just  before  they  fell  asleep  his  wife  remarked  out  of 
the  darkness,  "  Mr.  Scheidemann,  down  at  the  grocery, 
said  to-day  the  war  was  because  the  other  nations  were 
jealous  of  Germany." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know,"  said  Mr.  Pennypacker  heavily, 
"  that  I'd  have  any  call  to  take  an  ax  to  a  man  because 
I  thought  he  was  jealous  of  me." 

"  That's  so/*  admitted  his  wife. 

During  that  autumn  Ellen  read  the  papers,  and  from 
time  to  time  broke  her  silence  and  unburdened  her  mind 
to  the  people  in  the  boarding-house.  They  considered 
her  unbalanced  on  the  subject.  The  young  reporter  on 
the  Marshallton  Herald  liked  to  lead  her  on  to  "  get  her 
going,"  as  he  said — but  the  others  dodged  whenever  the 
war  was  mentioned  and  looked  apprehensively  in  her 
direction. 

The  law  of  association  of  ideas  works,  naturally 
enough,  in  Marshallton,  Kansas,  quite  as  much  at  its 
ease  as  in  any  psychological  laboratory.  In  fact  Mar 
shallton  was  a  psychological  laboratory  with  Ellen 
Boardman,  an  undefined  element  of  transmutation.  With 
out  knowing  why,  scarcely  realizing  that  the  little  drab 
figure  had  crossed  his  field  of  vision,  Mr.  Pennypacker 
found  the  war  recurring  to  his  thoughts  every  time  he 
saw  her.  He  did  not  at  all  enjoy  this,  and  each  time  that 
it  happened  he  thrust  the  disagreeable  subject  out  of  his 
mind  with  impatience.  The  constant  recurrence  of  the 
necessity  for  this  effort  brought  upon  his  usually  alert, 


i42  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

good-humored  face  an  occasional  clouded  expression 
like  that  which  darkened  his  stenographer's  eyes.  When 
Ellen  came  into  the  dining-room  of  the  boarding-house, 
even  though  she  did  not  say  a  word,  every  one  there  was 
aware  of  an  unpleasant  interruption  to  the  habitual, 
pleasant  current  of  their  thoughts  directed  upon  their 
own  affairs.  In  self-defense  some  of  the  women  took 
to  knitting  polo-caps  for  Belgian  children.  With  those 
in  their  hands  they  could  listen,  with  more  reassuring  cer 
tainty  that  she  was  "queer,"  to  Miss  Boardman's  com 
ments  on  what  she  read  in  the  newspaper.  Every  time 
Mr.  Wentworth,  preaching  one  of  his  excellent,  civic- 
minded  sermons  on  caring  for  the  babies  of  the  poor, 
or  organizing  a  playground  for  the  children  of  the  fac 
tory  workers,  or  extending  the  work  of  the  Ladies' 
Guild  to  neighborhood  visits,  caught  sight  of  that  plain, 
very  serious  face  looking  up  at  him  searchingly,  expect 
antly,  he  wondered  if  he  had  been  right  in  announcing 
that  he  would  not  speak  on  the  war  because  it  would  cer 
tainly  cause  dissension  among  his  congregation. 

One  day,  in  the  middle  of  winter,  he  found  Miss 
Boardman  waiting  for  him  in  the  church  vestibule  after 
every  one  else  had  gone.  She  said,  with  her  usual  di 
rectness:  "Mr.  Wentworth,  do  you  think  the  French 
ought  to  have  just  let  the  Germans  walk  right  in  and 
take  Paris  ?  Would  you  let  them  walk  right  in  and  take 
Washington  ?  " 

The  minister  was  a  young  man,  with  a  good  deal  of 
natural  heat  in  his  composition,  and  he  found  himself 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  143 

answering  this  bald  question  with  a  simplicity  as  bald: 
"  No,  I  wouldn't." 

"Well,  if  they  did  right,  why  don't  we  help  them?" 
Ellen's  homely,  monosyllabic  words  had  a  ring  of  de 
spairing  sincerity. 

Mr.  Wentworth  dodged  them  hastily.  "  We  are  help 
ing  them.  The  charitable  effort  of  the  United  States 
in  the  war  is  something  astounding.  The  statistics  show 
that  we  have  helped  ..."  He  was  going  on  to  repeat 
some  statistics  of  American  war-relief  just  then  current, 
Jwhen  Mr.  Scheidemann,  the  prosperous  German  grocer, 
a  most  influential  member  of  the  First  Congregational 
Church,  came  back  into  the  vestibule  to  look  for  his 
umbrella,  which  he  had  forgotten  after  the  service.  By 
a  reflex  action  beyond  his  control,  the  minister  stopped 
talking  about  the  war.  He  and  Miss  Boardman  had,  for. 
just  long  enough  so  that  he  realized  it,  the  appearance 
of  people  "  caught "  discussing  something  they  ought 
not  to  mention.  The  instant  after,  when  Ellen  had 
turned  away,  he  felt  the  liveliest  astonishment  and  an 
noyance  at  having  done  this.  He  feared  that  Miss 
Boardman  might  have  the  preposterous  notion  that  he 
was  afraid  to  talk  about  the  war  before  a  German.  This 
idea  nettled  him  intolerably.  Just  before  he  fell  asleep 
that  night  he  had  a  most  disagreeable  moment,  half 
awake,  half  asleep,  when  he  himself  entertained  the  pre 
posterous  idea  which  he  had  attributed  to  Miss  Board 
man.  It  woke  him  up,  broad  awake,  and  very  much 
vexed.  The  little  wound  he  had  inflicted  on  his  own 


'144  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

vanity  smarted.  Thereafter  at  any  mention  of  the  war 
he  straightened  his  back  to  a  conscious  stiffness,  and 
raised  his  voice  if  a  German  were  within  hearing.  And 
every  time  he  saw  that  plain,  dull  face  of  the  stenog 
rapher,  he  winced. 

On  the  8th  of  May,  1915,  when  Ellen  went  down  to 
breakfast,  the  boarding-house  dining-room  was  excited. 
Ellen  heard  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania  read  out  aloud 
by  the  young  reporter.  To  every  one's  surprise,  she  added 
nothing  to  the  exclamations  of  horror  with  which  the 
others  greeted  the  news.  She  looked  very  white  and  left 
the  room  without  touching  her  breakfast.  She  went  di 
rectly  down  to  the  office  and  when  Mr.  Pennypacker 
came  in  at  nine  o'clock  she  asked  him  for  a  leave  of  ab 
sence,  "  maybe  three  months,  maybe  more,"  depending 
on  how  long  her  money  held  out.  She  explained  that 
she  had  in  the  savings-bank  five  hundred  dollars,  the  en 
tire  savings  of  a  lifetime,  which  she  intended  to  use 
now. 

It  was  the  first  time  in  eleven  years  that  she  had  ever 
asked  for  more  than  her  regular  yearly  fortnight,  but 
Mr.  Pennypacker  was  not  surprised.  "  You've  been 
looking  awfully  run-down  lately.  It'll  do  you  good  to 
get  a  real  rest.  But  it  won't  cost  you  all  that!  Where 
are  you  going?  To  Battle  Creek?  " 

"  I'm  not  going  to  rest,"  said  Miss  Boardman,  in  a 
queer  voice.  "  I'm  going  to  work,  in  France." 

The  first  among  the  clashing  and  violent  ideas  which 
this  announcement  aroused  in  Mr.  Pennypacker's  mind 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  145 

was  the  instant  certainty  that  she  could  not  have  seen 
the  morning  paper.  "  Great  Scotland — not  much  you're 
not !  This  is  no  time  to  be  taking  ocean  trips.  The  sub 
marines  have  just  got  one  of  the  big  ocean  ships,  hun 
dreds  of  women  and  children  drowned." 

"  I  heard  about  that,"  she  said,  looking  at  him  very 
earnestly,  with  a  dumb  emotion  struggling  in  her  eyes. 
"  That's  why  I'm  going." 

Something  about  the  look  in  her  eyes  silenced  the 
business  man  for  a  moment.  He  thought  uneasily  that 
she  had  certainly  gone  a  little  dippy  over  the  war.  Then 
he  drew  a  long  breath  and  started  in  confidently  to  dis 
suade  her. 

At  ten  o'clock,  informed  that  if  she  went  she  need  not 
expect  to  come  back,  she  went  out  to  the  savings-bank, 
drew  out  her  five  hundred  dollars,  went  down  to  the 
station  and  bought  a  ticket  to  Washington,  one  of  Mr. 
Pennypacker's  arguments  having  been  the  great  diffi 
culty  of  getting  a  passport. 

Then  she  went  back  to  the  boarding-house  and  began 
to  pack  two-thirds  of  her  things  into  her  trunk,  and  put 
the  other  third  into  her  satchel,  all  she  intended  to  take 
with  her. 

At  noon  Maggie  came  back  from  her  work,  found 
her  thus,  and  burst  into  shocked  and  horrified  tears. 
At  two  o'clock  Maggie  went  to  find  the  young  reporter, 
and,  her  eyes  swollen,  her  face  between  anger  and  alarm, 
she  begged  him  to  come  and  "  talk  to  Ellen.  She's  gone 
off  her  head." 


I46  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

The  reporter  asked  what  form  her  mania  took. 

"  She's  going  to  France  to  work  for  the  French  and 
Belgians  as  long  as  her  money  holds  out  ...  all  the 
money  she's  saved  in  all  her  life!  " 

The  first  among  the  clashing  ideas  which  this  awak 
ened  in  the  reporter's  mind  was  the  most  heartfelt  and 
gorgeous  amusement.  The  idea  of  that  dumb,  back 
woods,  pie-faced  stenographer  carrying  her  valuable  serv 
ices  to  the  war  in  Europe  seemed  to  him  the  richest 
thing  that  had  happened  in  years !  He  burst  into  laugh 
ter.  "  Yes,  sure  I'll  come  and  talk  to  her,"  he  agreed. 
He  found  her  lifting  a  tray  into  her  trunk.  "  See  here, 
Miss  Boardman,"  he  remarked  reasonably,  "  do  you 
know  what  you  need?  You  need  a  sense  of  humor! 
You  take  things  too  much  in  dead  earnest.  The  sense 
of  humor  keeps  you  from  doing  ridiculous  things,  don't 
you  know  it  does  ?  " 

Ellen  faced  him,  seriously  considering  this.  "  Do  you 
think  all  ridiculous  things  are  bad  ?  "  she  asked  him,  not 
as  an  argument,  but  as  a  genuine  question. 

He  evaded  this  and  went  on.  "  Just  look  at  yourself 
now  .  .  .  just  look  at  what  you're  planning  to  do.  Here 
is  the  biggest  war  in  the  history  of  the  world;  all  the 
great  nations  involved;  millions  and  millions  of  dollars 
being  poured  out;  the  United  States  sending  hun 
dreds  and  thousands  of  packages  and  hospital  sup 
plies  by  the  million;  and  nurses  and  doctors  and  Lord 
knows  how  many  trained  people  .  .  .  and,  look! 
who  comes  here? — a  stenographer  from  Walker  and 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  147 

Pennypacker's,  in  Marshallton,  Kansas,  setting  out  to 
the  war ! " 

Ellen  looked  long  at  this  picture  of  herself,  and  while 
she  considered  it  the  young  man  looked  long  at  her.  As 
he  looked,  he  stopped  laughing.  She  said  finally,  very 
simply,  in  a  declarative  sentence  devoid  of  any  but  its 
obvious  meaning,  "  No,  I  can't  see  that  that  is  so  very 
funny." 

At  six  o'clock  that  evening  she  was  boarding  the  train 
for  Washington,  her  cousin  Maggie  weeping  by  her 
side,  Mrs.  Wilson  herself  escorting  her,  very  much  ex 
cited  by  the  momentousness  of  the  event  taking  place 
under  her  roof,  her  satchel  carried  by  none  other  than 
the  young  reporter,  who,  oddly  enough,  was  not  laughing 
at  all.  He  bought  her  a  box  of  chocolates  and  a  maga 
zine,  and  shook  hands  with  her  vigorously  as  the  train 
started  to  pull  out  of  the  station.  He  heard  himself 
saying,  "  Say,  Miss  Boardman,  if  you  see  anything  for 
me  to  do  over  there,  you  might  let  me  know,"  and  found 
that  he  must  run  to  get  himself  off  the  train  before  it 
carried  him  away  from  Marshallton  altogether. 

A  fortnight  from  that  day  (passports  were  not  so 
difficult  to  get  in  those  distant  days  when  war-relief 
work  was  the  eccentricity  of  only  an  occasional  indi 
vidual)  she  was  lying  in  her  second-class  cabin,  as  the 
steamer  rolled  in  the  Atlantic  swells  beyond  Sandy  Hook. 
She  was  horribly  seasick,  but  her  plans  were  all  quite 
clear.  Of  course  she  belonged  to  the  Young  Women's 
Christian  Association  in  Marshallton,  so  she  knew  all 


148  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

about  it.  At  Washington  she  had  found  shelter  at  the 
Y.W.C.A.  quarters.  In  New  York  she  had  done  the 
same  thing,  and  when  she  arrived  in  Paris  (if  she  ever 
did)  she  could  of  course  go  there  to  stay.  Her  room 
mate,  a  very  sophisticated,  much-traveled  art  student,  was 
immensely  amused  by  the  artlessness  of  this  plan.  "  I've 
got  the  dernier  cri  in  greenhorns  in  my  cabin/'  she  told 
her  group  on  deck.  "  She's  expecting  to  find  a  Y.W.C.A. 
in  Paris! " 

But  the  wisdom  of  the  simple  was  justified  once  more. 
There  was  a  Y.W.C.A.  in  Paris,  run  by  an  energetic, 
well-informed  American  spinster.  Ellen  crawled  into 
the  rather  hard  bed  in  the  very  small  room  (the  cheapest 
offered  her)  and  slept  twelve  hours  at  a  stretch,  utterly 
worn  out  with  the  devastating  excitement  of  her  first 
travels  in  a  foreign  land.  Then  she  rose  up,  compara 
tively  refreshed,  and  with  her  foolish,  ignorant  simplicity 
inquired  where  in  Paris  her  services  could  be  of  use. 
The  energetic  woman  managing  the  Y.W.C.A.  looked 
at  her  very  dubiously. 

"  Well,  there  might  be  something  for  you  over  on  the 
rue  Pharaon,  number  27.  I  hear  there's  a  bunch  of  so 
ciety  dames  trying  to  get  up  a  vesiiaire  for  refugees, 
there." 

As  Ellen  noted  down  the  address  she  said  warningly, 
her  eyes  running  over  Ellen's  worn  blue  serge  suit: 
"  They  don't  pay  anything.  It's  work  for  volunteers, 
you  know." 

Ellen  was  astonished  that  any  one  should  think  of  get- 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  149 

ting  pay  for  work  done  in  France.  "  Oh,  gracious,  no ! " 
she  said,  turning  away. 

The  directress  of  the  Y.W.C.A.  murmured  to  herself : 
"  Well,  you  certainly  never  can  tell  by  looks!  " 

At  the  rue  Pharaon,  number  27,  Ellen  was  motioned 
across  a  stony  gray  courtyard  littered  with  wooden 
packing-cases,  into  an  immense,  draughty  dark  room, 
that  looked  as  though  it  might  have  been  originally  the 
coach  and  harness-room  of  a  big  stable.  This  also  was 
strewed  and  heaped  with  packing-cases  in  indescribable 
confusion,  some  opened  and  disgorging  innumerable  gar 
ments  of  all  colors  and  materials,  others  still  tightly 
nailed  up.  A  couple  of  elderly  workmen  in  blouses  were 
opening  one  of  these.  Before  others  knelt  or  stood  dis 
tracted-looking,  elegantly  dressed  women,  their  arms  full 
of  parti-colored  bundles,  their  eyes  full  of  confusion. 
In  one  corner,  on  a  bench,  sat  a  row  of  wretchedly  poor 
women  and  white-faced,  silent  children,  the  latter  shod 
more  miserably  than  the  poorest  negro  child  in  Marshall- 
ton.  Against  a  packing-case  near  the  entrance  leaned  a 
beautifully  dressed,  handsome,  middle-aged  woman,  a 
hammer  in  one  hand.  Before  her  at  ease  stood  a  pretty 
girl,  the  fineness  of  whose  tightly  drawn  silk  stockings, 
the  perfection  of  whose  gleaming  coiffure,  the  exquisite 
hang  and  fit  of  whose  silken  dress  filled  Ellen  Boardman 
with  awe.  In  an  instant  her  own  stout  cotton  hose  hung 
wrinkled  about  her  ankles,  she  felt  on  her  neck  every 
stringy  wisp  of  her  badly  dressed  hair,  the  dip  of  her 
skirt  at  the  back  was  a  physical  discomfort.  The  older 


150  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

woman  was  speaking.  Ellen  could  not  help  overhearing. 
She  said  forcibly :  "  No,  Miss  Parton,  you  will  not  come 
in  contact  with  a  single  heroic  poilu  here.  We  have 
nothing  to  offer  you  but  hard,  uninteresting  work  for  the 
benefit  of  ungrateful,  uninteresting  refugee  women, 
many  of  whom  will  try  to  cheat  and  get  double  their 
share.  You  will  not  lay  your  hand  on  a  single  fevered 
masculine  brow  ..."  She  broke  off,  made  an  effort 
for  self-control  and  went  on  with  a  resolutely  reasonable 
air :  "  You'd  better  go  out  to  the  hospital  at  Neuilly. 
You  can  wear  a  uniform  there  from  the  first  day, 
and  be  in  contact  with  the  men.  I  wouldn't  have  both 
ered  you  to  come  here,  except  that  you  wrote  from  De 
troit  that  you  would  be  willing  to  do  anything,  scrub 
floors  or  wash  dishes/' 

The  other  received  all  this  with  the  indestructible 
good  humor  of  a  girl  who  knows  herself  very  pretty  and 
as  well  dressed  as  any  one  in  the  world.  "  I  know  I  did, 
Mrs.  Putnam,"  she  said,  amused  at  her  own  absurdity. 
"  But  now  I'm  here  I'd  be  too  disappointed  to  go  back  if 
I  hadn't  been  working  for  the  soldiers.  All  the  girls 
expect  me  to  have  stories  about  the  work,  you  know. 
And  I  can't  stay  very  long,  only  four  months,  because 
my  coming-out  party  is  in  October.  I  guess  I  will  go  to 
Neuilly.  They  take  you  for  three  months  there,  you 
know/'  She  smiled  pleasantly,  turned  with  athletic 
grace  and  picked  her  way  among  the  packing-cases  back 
to  the  door. 

Ellen  advanced  in  her  turn. 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  151 

"Well?"  said  the  middle-aged  woman,  rather  grimly. 
Her  intelligent  eyes  took  in  relentlessly  every  detail  of 
Ellen's  costume  and  Ellen  felt  them  at  their  work. 

"  I  came  to  see  if  I  couldn't  help,"  said  Ellen. 

"  Don't  you  want  direct  contact  with  the  wounded 
soldiers?"  asked  the  older  woman  ironically. 

"  No,"  said  Ellen  with  her  habitual  simplicity.  "  I 
wouldn't  know  how  to  do  anything  for  them.  I'm  not  a 


nurse." 


'  You  don't  suppose  that's  any  obstacle !  "  ejaculated 
the  other  woman. 

"  But  I  never  had  anything  to  do  with  sick  people," 
said  Ellen.  "  I'm  the  office-manager  of  a  big  hardware 
firm  in  Kansas." 

Mrs.  Putnam  gasped  like  a  drowning  person  coming 
to  the  surface.  "You  are!"  she  cried.  "You  don't 
happen  to  know  short-hand,  do  you  ?  " 

"  Gracious !  of  course  I  know  short-hand !  "  cried  El 
len,  her  astonishment  proving  her  competence. 

Mrs.  Putnam  laid  down  her  hammer  and  drew  an 
other  long  breath.  "  How  much  time  can  you  give  us?  " 
she  asked.  :<  Two  afternoons  a  week?  Three?" 

"Oh,  my!"  said  Ellen,  "  I  can  give  you  all  my  time, 
from  eight  in  the  morning  till  six  at  night.  That's  what 
I  came  for." 

Mrs.  Putnam  looked  at  her  a  moment  as  though  to  as 
sure  herself  that  she  was  not  dreaming,  and  then,  seizing 
her  by  the  arm,  she  propelled  her  rapidly  towards  the 
back  of  the  room,  and  through  a  small  door  into  a  dingy 


,i52  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

\ 

little  room  with  two  desks  in  it.  Among  the  heaped-up 
papers  on  one  of  these  a  blond  young  woman  with  inky 
fingers  sought  wildly  something  which  she  did  not  find. 
She  said  without  looking  up :  "  Oh,  Aunt  Maria,  I've 
just  discovered  that  that  shipment  of  clothes  from  Louis 
ville  got  acknowledged  to  the  people  in  Seattle!  Arid  I 
can't  find  that  letter  from  the  woman  in  Indianapolis  who 
offered  to  send  children's  shirts  from  her  husband's  fac 
tory.  You  said  you  laid  it  on  your  desk,  last  night,  but 
I  cannot  find  it.  And  do  you  remember  what  you  wrote 
Mrs.  Worthington?  Did  you  say  anything  about  the 
shoes?" 

Ellen  heard  this  but  dimly,  her  gaze  fixed  on  the  con 
fusion  of  the  desks  which  made  her  physically  dizzy  to 
contemplate.  Never  had  she  dreamed  that  papers,  sacred 
records  of  fact,  could  be  so  maltreated.  In  a  reflex 
response  to  the  last  question  of  the  lovely,  distressed 
young  lady  she  said :  "  Why  don't  you  look  at  the  car 
bon  copy  of  the  letter  to  Mrs.  Worthington  ?  " 

"Copy!"  cried  the  young  lady,  aghast.  "Why,  we 
don't  begin  to  have  time  to  write  the  letters  once,  let 
alone  copy  them !  " 

Ellen  gazed  horrified  into  an  abyss  of  ignorance  which 
went  beyond  her  utmost  imaginings.  She  said  feebly, 
"  If  you  kept  your  letters  in  a  letter-file,  you  wouldn't 
ever  lose  them." 

'  There,"  said  Mrs.  Putnam,  in  the  tone  of  one  unex 
pectedly  upheld  in  a  rather  bizarre  opinion,  "  I've  been 
saying  all  the  time  we  ought  to  have  a  letter-file.  But 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  153 

do  you  suppose  you  could  buy  one  in  Paris  ?  "  She  spoke 
dubiously  from  the  point  of  view  of  one  who  had  bought 
nothing  but  gloves  and  laces  and  old  prints  in  Paris. 

Ellen  answered  with  the  certainty  of  one  who  had 
found  the  Y.W.C.A.  in  Paris:  "  I'm  sure  you  can.  Why, 
they  could  not  do  business  a  minute  without  letter-files." 

Mrs.  Putnam  sank  into  a  chair  with  a  sigh  of  bewil 
derment  and  fatigue,  and  showed  herself  to  be  as  truly 
a  superior  person  as  she  looked  by  making  the  following 
speech  to  the  newcomer:  "  The  truth  is,  Miss  ..." 

"  Boardman,"  supplied  Ellen. 

"  Miss  Boardman,  the  fact  is  that  we  are  trying  to  do 
something  which  is  beyond  us,  something  we  ought  never 
to  have  undertaken.  But  we  didn't  know  we  were  under 
taking  it,  you  see.  And  now  that  it  is  begun,  it  must 
not  fail.  All  the  wonderful  American  good-will  which 
has  materialized  in  that  room  full  of  packing-cases  must 
not  be  wasted,  must  get  to  the  people  who  need  it  so 
direly.  It  began  this  way.  We  had  no  notion  that  we 
would  have  so  great  an  affair  to  direct.  My  niece  and 
I  were  living  here  when  the  war  broke  out.  Of  course 
we  gave  all  our  own  clothes  we  could  spare  and  all  the 
money  we  could  for  the  refugees.  Then  we  wrote  home 
to  our  American  friends.  One  of  my  letters  was  pub 
lished  by  chance  in  a  New  York  paper  and  copied  in  a 
number  of  others.  Everybody  who  happened  to  know 
my  name" — (Ellen  heard  afterwards  that  she  was  of 
the  holy  of  holies  of  New  England  families) — "  began 
sending  me  money  and  boxes  of  clothing.  It  all  arrived 


154  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

so  suddenly,  so  unexpectedly.  We  had  to  rent  this  place 
to  put  the  things  in.  The  refugees  came  in  swarms.  We 
found  ourselves  overwhelmed.  It  is  impossible  to  find  a 
single  English-speaking  stenographer  who  is  not  already 
more  than  overworked.  The  only  help  we  get  is  from 
volunteers,  a  good  many  of  them  American  society  girls 
like  that  one  you  .  .  ."  she  paused  to  invent  a  suffi 
ciently  savage  characterization  and  hesitated  to  pro 
nounce  it.  "  Well,  most  of  them  are  not  quite  so  absurd 
as  that.  But  none  of  them  know  any  more  than  we  do 
about  keeping  accounts,  letters  .  .  ." 

Ellen  broke  in :  "  How  do  you  keep  your  accounts,  any 
how?  Bound  ledger,  or  the  loose-leaf  system?" 

They  stared.  "  I  have  been  careful  to  set  down  every 
thing  I  could  remember  in  a  little  note-book/'  said  Mrs. 
Putnam. 

Ellen  looked  about  for  a  chair  and  sat  down  on  it/ 
hastily.  When  she  could  speak  again,  after  a  moment  of' 
silent  collecting  of  her  forces  she  said:  "Well,  I  guess 
the  first  thing  to  do  is  to  get  a  letter-file.  I  don't  know 
any  French,  so  I  probably  couldn't  get  it.  If  one  of 
you  could  go  .  .  ." 

The  pretty  young  lady  sprang  for  her  hat.  "  I'll  go ! 
I'll  go,  Auntie." 

"  And,"  continued  Ellen,  "  you  can't  do  anything  till 
you  keep  copies  of  your  letters  and  you  can't  make  copies 
unless  you  have  a  typewriter.  Don't  you  suppose  you 
could  rent  one  ?  " 

"  I'll  rent  one  before  I  come  back,"  said  Eleanor,  who 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  155 

evidently  lacked  neither  energy  nor  good-will.  She  said 
to  Mrs.  Putnam :  "  I'm  going,  instead  of  you,  so  that 
you  can  superintend  opening  those  boxes.  They  are 
making  a  most  horrible  mess  of  it,  I  know." 

"  Before  a  single  one  is  opened,  you  ought  to  take 
down  the  name  and  address  of  the  sender,  and  then 
note  the  contents,"  said  Ellen,  speaking  with  authority. 
"  A  card-catalogue  would  be  a  good  system  for  keeping 
that  record,  I  should  think,  with  dates  of  the  arrival  of 
the  cases.  And  why  couldn't  you  keep  track  of  your 
refugees  that  way,  too?  A  card  for  each  family,  with 
a  record  on  it  of  the  number  in  the  family  and  of  every 
thing  given.  You  could  refer  to  it  in  a  moment,  and 
carry  it  out  to  the  room  where  the  refugees  are  re 
ceived." 

They  gazed  at  her  plain,  sallow  countenance  in  rapt 
admiration. 

"  Eleanor,"  said  Mrs.  Putnam,  "  bring  back  cards  for 
a  card-catalogue,  hundreds  of  cards,  thousands  of  cards." 
She  addressed  Ellen  with  a  respect  which  did  honor  to 
her  native  intelligence.  "  Miss  Boardman,  wouldn't  you 
better  take  off  your  hat?  Couldn't  you  work  more  at 
your  ease?  You  could  hang  your  things  here."  With 
one  sweep  of  her  white,  well-cared-for  hand  she  snatched 
her  own  Parisian  habiliments  from  the  hanger  and  hook, 
and  installed  there  the  Marshallton  wraps  of  Ellen 
Boardman.  She  set  her  down  in  front  of  the  desk;  she 
put  in  her  hands  the  ridiculous  little  Russia  leather- 
covered  note-book  of  the  "  accounts  ";  she  opened  drawer 


156  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

after  drawer  crammed  with  letters;  and  with  a  happy 
sigh  she  went  out  to  the  room  of  the  packing-cases, 
closing  the  door  gently  behind  her,  that  she  might  not 
disturb  the  high-priestess  of  business-management  who 
already  bent  over  those  abominably  mis-used  records, 
her  eyes  gleaming  with  the  sacred  fire  of  system. 

There  is  practically  nothing  more  to  record  about  the 
four  months  spent  by  Ellen  Boardman  as  far  as  her 
work  at  the  vestiaire  was  concerned.  Every  day  she 
arrived  at  number  27  rue  Pharaon  at  eight  o'clock  and 
put  in  a  good  hour  of  quiet  work  before  any  of  the 
more  or  less  irregular  volunteer  ladies  appeared.  She 
worked  there  till  noon,  returned  to  the  Y.W.C.A., 
lunched,  was  in  the  office  again  by  one  o'clock, 
had  another  hour  of  forceful  concentration  before  any 
of  the  cosmopolitan  great  ladies  finished  their  lengthy 
dejeuners,  and  she  stayed  there  until  six  in  the  evening, 
when  every  one  else  had  gone.  She  realized  that  her 
effort  must  be  not  only  to  create  a  rational  system  of 
records  and  accounts  and  correspondence  which  she  her 
self  could  manage,  but  a  fool-proof  one  which  could  be 
left  in  the  hands  of  the  elegant  ladies  who  would  remain 
in  Paris  after  she  had  returned  to  Kansas. 

And  yet,  not  so  fool-proof  as  she  had  thought  at  first. 
She  was  agreeably  surprised  to  find  both  Mrs.  Putnam 
and  her  pretty  niece  perfectly  capable  of  understanding 
a  system  once  it  was  invented,  set  in  working  order,  and 
explained  to  them.  She  came  to  understand  that  what, 
on  her  first  encounter  with  them,  she  had  naturally 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  157 

enough  taken  for  congenital  imbecility,  was  merely  the 
result  of  an  ignorance  and  an  inexperience  which  re 
mained  to  the  end  astounding  to  her.  Their  good-will 
was  as  great  as  their  native  capacity.  Eleanor  set  her 
self  resolutely,  if  very  awkwardly,  to  learn  the  use  of 
the  typewriter.  Mrs.  Putnam  even  developed  the  great 
est  interest  in  the  ingenious  methods  of  corraling  and 
marshaling  information  and  facts  which  were  second 
nature  to  the  business-woman.  "  I  never  saw  anything 
more  fascinating ! "  she  cried  the  day  when  Ellen  ex 
plained  to  her  the  workings  of  a  system  for  cross-index 
ing  the  card-catalogues  of  refugees  already  aided.  "  How 
do  you  think  of  such  things?" 

Ellen  did  not  explain  that  she  generally  thought  of 
them  in  the  two  or  three  extra  hours  of  work  she  put  in 
every  day,  while  Mrs.  Putnam  ate  elaborate  food. 

It  soon  became  apparent  that  there  had  been  much 
"  repeating  "  among  the  refugees.  The  number  possible 
to  clothe  grew  rapidly,  far  beyond  what  the  "  office 
force  "  could  manage  to  investigate.  Ellen  set  her  face 
against  miscellaneous  giving  without  knowledge  of  con 
ditions.  She  devised  a  system  of  visiting  inspectors 
which  kept  track  of  all  the  families  in  their  rapidly  grow 
ing  list.  She  even  made  out  a  sort  of  time-card  for  the 
visiting  ladies  which  enabled  the  office  to  keep  some 
track  of  what  they  did,  and  yet  did  not  ruffle  their 
leisure-class  dignity  .  .  .  and  this  was  really  an  achieve 
ment.  She  suggested,  made  out,  and  had  printed  an 
orderly  report  of  what  they  had  done,  what  money  had 


158  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

come  in,  how  it  had  been  spent,  what  clothes  had  been 
given  and  how  distributed,  the  number  of  people  aided, 
the  most  pressing  needs.  This  she  had  put  in  every 
letter  sent  to  America.  The  result  was  enough  to  justify 
Mrs.  Putnam's  na'ive  astonishment  and  admiration  of 
her  brilliant  idea.  Packing-cases  and  checks  flowed  in 
by  every  American  steamer. 

Ellen's  various  accounting  systems  and  card-cata 
logues  responded  with  elastic  ease  to  the  increased  vol 
ume  of  facts,  as  she  of  course  expected  them  to ;  but  Mrs. 
Putnam  could  never  be  done  marveling  at  the  cool  cer 
tainty  with  which  all  this  immense  increase  was  handled. 
She  had  a  shudder  as  she  thought  of  what  would  have 
happened  if  Miss  Boardman  had  not  dropped  down  from 
heaven  upon  them.  Dining  out,  of  an  evening,  she  spent 
much  time  expatiating  on  the  astonishing  virtues  of  one 
of  her  volunteers. 

Ellen  conceived  a  considerable  regard  for  Mrs.  Put 
nam,  but  she  did  not  talk  of  her  in  dining  out,  because 
she  never  dined  anywhere.  She  left  the  "  office  "  at  six 
o'clock  and  proceeded  to  a  nearby  bakery  where  she 
bought  four  sizable  rolls.  An  apple  cart  supplied  a 
couple  of  apples,  and  even  her  ignorance  of  French  was 
not  too  great  an  obstacle  to  the  purchase  of  some  cakes  of 
sweet  chocolate.  With  these  decently  hidden  in  a  small 
black  hand-bag,  she  proceeded  to  the  waiting-room  of 
the  Gare  de  1'Est  where,  like  any  traveler  waiting  for 
his  train  she  ate  her  frugal  meal;  ate  as  much  of  it,  that 
is,  as  a  painful  tightness  in  her  throat  would  let  her. 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  159 

For  the  Gare  de  1'Est  was  where  the  majority  of  French 
soldiers  took  their  trains  to  go  back  to  the  front 
after  their  occasional  week's  furlough  with  their  fam 
ilies. 

No  words  of  mine  can  convey  any  impression  of  what 
she  saw  there.  No  one  who  has  not  seen  the  Gare  de 
1'Est  night  after  night  can  ever  imagine  the  sum  of 
stifled  human  sorrow  which  filled  it  thickly,  like  a 
dreadful  incense  of  pain  going  up  before  some  cruel 
god.  It  was  there  that  the  mothers,  the  wives, 
the  sweethearts,  the  sisters,  the  children  brought  their 
priceless  all  and  once  more  laid  it  on  the  altar.  It  was 
there  that  those  horrible  silent  farewells  were  said,  the 
more  unendurable  because  they  were  repeated  and  re 
peated  till  human  nature  reeled  under  the  burden  laid 
on  it  by  the  will.  The  great  court  outside,  the  noisy 
echoing  waiting-room,  the  inner  platform  which  was  the 
uttermost  limit  for  those  accompanying  the  soldiers  re 
turning  to  hell, — they  were  not  only  always  filled  with 
living  hearts  broken  on  the  wheel,  but  they  were 
thronged  with  ghosts,  ghosts  of  those  whose  farewell 
kiss  had  really  been  the  last,  with  ghosts  of  those  who 
had  watched  the  dear  face  out  of  sight  and  who  were 
never  to  see  it  again.  Those  last  straining,  wordless  em 
braces,  those  last,  hot,  silent  kisses,  the  last  touch  of  the 
little  child's  hand  on  the  father's  cheek  which  it  was 
never  to  touch  again  ...  the  nightmare  place  reeked  of 
them! 

The  stenographer  from  Kansas  had  found  it  as  sim- 


160  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

ply  as  she  had  done  everything  else.  "  Which  station 
do  the  families  go  to  say  good-bye  to  their  soldiers  ? " 
she  had  asked,  explaining  apologetically  that  she  thought 
maybe  if  she  went  there  too  she  could  help  sometimes; 
there  might  be  a  heavy  baby  to  carry,  or  somebody  who 
had  lost  his  ticket,  or  somebody  who  hadn't  any  lunch 
for  the  train. 

After  the  first  evening  spent  there,  she  had  shivered 
and  wept  all  night  in  her  bed;  but  she  had  gone  back  the 
next  evening,  with  the  money  she  saved  by  eating  bread 
and  apples  for  her  dinner;  for  of  course  the  sweet 
chocolate  was  for  the  soldiers.  She  sat  there,  armed 
with  nothing  but  her  immense  ignorance,  her  immense 
sympathy.  On  that  second  evening  she  summoned 
enough  courage  to  give  some  chocolate  to  an  elderly 
shabby  soldier,  taking  the  train  sadly,  quite  alone;  and 
again  to  a  white-faced  young  lad  accompanied  by  his 
bent,  poorly  dressed  grandmother.  What  happened  in 
both  those  cases  sent  her  back  to  the  Y.W.C.A.  to  make 
up  laboriously  from  her  little  pocket  French  dictionary 
and  to  learn  by  heart  this  sentence :  "  I  am  sorry  that  I 
cannot  understand  French.  I  am  an  American."  There 
after  the  surprised  and  extremely  articulate  Gallic  grati 
tude  which  greeted  her  timid  overtures,  did  not  leave 
her  so  helplessly  swamped  in  confusion.  She  stammered 
out  her  little  phrase  with  a  shy,  embarrassed  smile  and 
withdrew  as  soon  as  possible  from  the  hearty  handshake 
which  was  nearly  always  the  substitute  offered  for  the 
unintelligible  thanks.  How  many  such  handshakes  she 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  161 

had !  Sometimes  as  she  watched  her  right  hand,  tapping 
on  the  typewriter,  she  thought :  "  Those  hands  which  it 
has  touched,  they  may  be  dead  now.  They  were  heroes' 
hands."  She  looked  at  her  own  with  awe,  because  it  had 
touched  them. 

Once  her  little  phrase  brought  out  an  unexpected  re 
sponse  from  a  rough-looking  man  who  sat  beside  het 
on  the  bench  waiting  for  his  train,  his  eyes  fixed  gloomily 
on  his  great  soldier's  shoes.  She  offered  him,  shame 
facedly,  a  little  sewing-kit  which  she  herself  had  manu 
factured,  a  pad  of  writing-paper  and  some  envelopes. 
He  started,  came  out  of  his  bitter  brooding,  looked  at 
her  astonished,  and,  as  they  all  did  without  exception, 
read  in  her  plain,  earnest  face  what  she  was.  He 
touched  his  battered  trench  helmet  in  a  sketched  salute 
and  thanked  her.  She  answered  as  usual  that  she  was 
sorry  she  could  not  understand  French,  being  an  Ameri 
can.  To  her  amazement  he  answered  in  fluent  English, 
with  an  unmistakable  New  York  twang :  "  Oh,  you  are, 
are  you  ?  Well,  so'm  I.  Brought  up  there  from  the  time 
I  was  a  kid.  But  all  my  folks  are  French  and  my  wife's 
French  and  I  couldn't  give  the  old  country  the  go-by 
when  trouble  came." 

In  the  conversation  which  followed  Ellen  learned  that 
his  wife  was  expecting  their  first  child  in  a  few  weeks 
.  .  .  "  that's  why  she  didn't  come  to  see  me  off.  She 
said  it  would  just  about  kill  her  to  watch  me  getting  on 
the  train  .  .  .  and  anyhow  she's  not  fit  to  walk.  Maybe 
you  think  it's  easy  to  leave  her  all  alone  .  .  .  the  poor 


162  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

kid !  "  The  tears  rose  frankly  to  his  eyes.  He  blew  his 
nose. 

"  Maybe  I  could  do  something  for  her,"  suggested 
Ellen,  her  heart  beating  fast  at  the  idea. 

"  Gee !  Yes !  If  you'd  go  to  see  her !  She  talks  a 
little  English !  "  he  cried.  He  gave  her  the  name  and  ad 
dress,  and  when  that  poilu  went  back  to  the  front  it  was 
Ellen  Boardman  from  Marshallton,  Kansas,  who  walked 
with  him  to  the  gate,  who  shook  hands  with  him,  who 
waved  him  a  last  salute  as  he  boarded  his  train. 

The  next  night  she  did  not  go  to  the  station.  She 
went  to  see  the  wife.  The  night  after  that  she  was  sew 
ing  on  a  baby's  wrapper  as  she  sat  in  the  Gare  de  1'Est, 
turning  her  eyes  away  in  shame  from  the  intolerable 
sorrow  of  those  with  families,  watching  for  those  occa 
sional  solitary  or  very  poor  ones  whom  alone  she  ven 
tured  to  approach  with  her  timidly  proffered  tokens  of 
sympathy. 

At  the  Y.W.C.A.  opinions  varied  about  her.  She  was 
patently  to  every  eye  respectable  to  her  last  drop  of  pale 
blood.  And  yet  was  it  quite  respectable  to  go  offering1 
chocolate  and  writing-paper  to  soldiers  you'd  never  seen 
before?  Everybody  knew  what  soldiers  were!  Some 
one  finally  decided  smartly  that  her  hat  was  a  sufficient 
protection.  It  is  true  that  her  hat  was  not  becoming, 
but  I  do  not  think  it  was  what  saved  her  from  misunder 
standing. 

She  did  not  always  go  to  the  Gare  de  1'Est  every  eve 
ning  now.  Sometimes  she  spent  them  in  the  little 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  163 

dormer-windowed  room  where  the  wife  of  the  New  York 
poilu  waited  for  her  baby.  Several  evenings  she  spent 
chasing  elusive  information  from  the  American  Ambu 
lance  Corps  as  to  exactly  the  conditions  in  which  a 
young  man  without  money  could  come  to  drive  an  ambu 
lance  in  France  .  .  .  the  young  man  without  money  be 
ing  of  course  the  reporter  on  the  Marshallton  Herald. 

It  chanced  to  be  on  one  of  the  evenings  when  she  was 
with  the  young  wife  that  the  need  came,  that  she  went 
flying  to  get  the  mid-wife.  She  sat  on  the  stairs  out 
side,  after  this,  till  nearly  morning,  shaken  to  her  soul 
by  the  cries  within.  When  it  was  quiet,  when  the  mid 
wife  let  her  in  to  see  the  baby,  she  took  the  little  new 
citizen  of  the  Republic  in  her  arms,  tears  of  mingled 
thanksgiving  and  dreadful  fear  raining  down  her  face, 
because  another  man-child  had  been  born  into  the  world. 
Would  he  grow  up  only  to  say  farewell  at  the  Gare  de 
1'Est?  Oh,  she  was  not  sorry  that  she  had  come  to 
France  to  help  in  that  war.  She  understood  now,  she 
understood. 

It  was  Ellen  who  wrote  to  the  father  the  letter  an 
nouncing  the  birth  of  a  child  which  gave  him  the  right 
to  another  precious  short  furlough.  It  was  Ellen  who 
\vent  down  to  the  Gare  de  1'Est,  this  time  to  the  joyful 
wait  on  the  muddy  street  outside  the  side  door  from 
which  the  returning  permissionnaires  issued  forth,  caked 
with  mud  to  their  eyes.  It  was  Ellen  who  had  never  be 
fore  "  been  kissed  by  a  man  "  who  was  caught  in  a  pair 
of  dingy,  horizon-blue  arms  and  soundly  saluted  on  each 


164  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

sallow  cheek  by  the  exultant  father.  It  was  Ellen  who 
was  made  as  much  of  a  godmother  as  her  Protestant 
affiliations  permitted  .  .  .  and  oh,  it  was  Ellen  who  made 
the  fourth  at  the  end  of  the  furlough  when  (the  first 
time  the  new  mother  had  left  her  room)  they  went  back 
to  the  Gare  de  1'Est.  At  the  last  it  was  Ellen  who  held 
the  sleeping  baby  when  the  husband  took  his  wife  in 
that  long,  bitter  embrace;  it  was  Ellen  who  was  not 
surprised  or  hurt  that  he  turned  away  without  a  word 
to  her  .  .  .  she  understood  that  ...  it  was  Ellen  whose 
arm  was  around  the  trembling  young  wife  as  they  stood, 
their  faces  pressed  against  the  barrier  to  see  him  for  the 
last  time;  it  was  Ellen  who  went  back  with  her  to  the 
silent  desolation  of  the  little  room,  who  put  the  baby 
into  the  slackly  hanging  arms,  and  watched,  her  eyes 
burning  with  unshed  tears,  those  arms  close  about  the 
little  new  inheritor  of  humanity's  woes.  .  .  . 

Four  months  from  the  time  she  landed  in  Paris  her 
money  was  almost  gone  and  she  was  quitting  the  city 
with  barely  enough  in  her  pocket  to  take  her  back  to 
Marshallton.  As  simply  as  she  had  come  to  Paris,  she 
now  went  home.  She  belonged  to  Marshallton.  It  was  a 
very  good  thing  for  Marshallton  that  she  did. 

She  gave  fifty  dollars  to  the  mother  of  baby  Jacques 
(that  was  why  she  had  so  very  little  left)  and  she  prom 
ised  to  send  her  ten  dollars  every  month  as  soon  as  she 
herself  should  be  again  a  wage-earner.  Mrs.  Putnam 
and  her  niece,  inconsolable  at  her  loss,  went  down  to 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  165 

the  Gare  du  Quai  d'Orsay  to  see  her  off,  looking  more  in 
keeping  with  the  elegant  travelers  starting  for  the  Midi, 
than  Ellen  did.  Her  place,  after  all,  had  been  at  the 
Gare  de  1'Est.  As  they  shook  hands  warmly  with  her, 
they  gave  her  a  beautiful  bouquet,  the  evident  cost  of 
which  stabbed  her  to  the  heart  What  she  could  have 
done  with  that  money ! 

"  You  have  simply  transformed  the  vestiaire,  Miss 
Boardman,"  said  Mrs.  Putnam  with  generous  but  by 
no  means  exaggerating  ardor.  "  It  would  certainly  have 
sunk  under  the  waves  if  you  hadn't  come  to  the  rescue. 
I  wish  you  could  have  stayed,  but  thanks  to  your  teach 
ing  we'll  be  able  to  manage  anything  now." 

After  the  train  had  moved  off,  Mrs.  Putnam  said  to 
her  niece  in  a  shocked  voice :  "  Third  class !  That  long 
trip  to  Bordeaux!  She'll  die  of  fatigue.  You  don't 
suppose  she  is  going  back  because  she  didn't  have  money 
enough  to  stay!  Why,  I  would  have  paid  anything  to 
keep  her."  The  belated  nature  of  this  reflection  shows 
that  Ellen's  teachings  had  never  gone  more  than  skin 
deep  and  that  there  was  still  something  lacking  in  Mrs. 
Putnam's  grasp  on  the  realities  of  contemporary  life. 

Ellen  was  again  too  horribly  seasick  to  suffer  much 
apprehension  about  submarines.  This  time  she  had  as 
cabin-mate  in  the  unventilated  second-class  cabin  the 
"  companion  "  of  a  great  lady  traveling  of  course  in  a 
suite  in  first-class.  This  great  personage,  when  informed 
fyy  her  satellites'  nimble  and  malicious  tongues  of  Ellen's 


1 66  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

personality  and  recent  errand  in  France,  remarked  with 
authority  to  the  group  of  people  about  her  at  dinner, 
embarking  upon  the  game  which  was  the  seventh  course 
of  the  meal :  "  I  disapprove  wholly  of  these  foolish 
American  volunteers  .  .  .  ignorant,  awkward,  provincial 
boors,  for  the  most  part,  knowing  nothing  of  all  the 
exquisite  old  traditions  of  France,  who  thrust  themselves 
forward.  They  make  America  a  laughing-stock." 

Luckily,  Ellen,  pecking  feebly  at  the  chilly  boiled  po 
tato  brought  her  by  an  impatient  stewardess,  could  not 
know  this  characterization. 

She  arrived  in  Marshallton,  and  was  astonished  to 
find  herself  a  personage.  Her  departure  had  made  her 
much  more  a  figure  in  the  town  life  than  she  had  ever 
been  when  she  was  still  walking  its  streets.  The  day 
after  her  departure  the  young  reporter  had  written  her 
up  in  the  Herald  in  a  lengthy  paragraph,  and  not  a  hu 
morous  one  either.  The  Sunday  which  she  passed  on  the 
ocean  after  she  left  New  York  Mr.  Wentworth  in  one 
of  his  prayers  implored  the  Divine  blessing  on  "  one  of 
our  number  who  has  left  home  and  safety  to  fulfil  a  high 
moral  obligation  and  who  even  now  is  risking  death  in 
the  pursuance  of  her  duty  as  she  conceives  it."  Every 
one  knew  that  he  meant  Ellen  Boardman,  about  whom 
they  had  all  read  in  the  Herald.  Mr.  Pennypacker  took, 
then  and  there,  a  decision  which  inexplicably  lightened 
his  heart.  Being  a  good  business-man,  he  did  not  keep 
it  to  himself,  but  allowed  it  to  leak  out  the  next  time  the 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  167 

reporter  from  the  Herald  dropped  around  for  chance 
items  of  news.  The  reporter  made  the  most  of  it,  and 
Marshallton,  already  spending  much  of  its  time  in  dis 
cussing  Ellen,  read  that  "  Mr.  John  S.  Pennypacker,  in 
view  of  the  high  humanitarian  principles  animating  Miss 
Boardman  in  quitting  his  employ,  has  decided  not  to  fill 
her  position  but  to  keep  it  open  for  her  on  her  return 
from  her  errand  of  mercy  to  those  in  foreign  parts 
stricken  by  the  awful  war  now  devastating  Europe." 

Then  Ellen's  letters  began  to  arrive,  mostly  to  Maggie, 
who  read  them  aloud  to  the  deeply  interested  boarding- 
house  circle.  The  members  of  this,  basking  in  reflected 
importance,  repeated  their  contents  to  every  one  who 
would  listen.  In  addition  the  young  reporter  published 
extracts  from  them  in  the  Herald,  editing  them  artfully, 
choosing  the  rare  plums  of  anecdote  or  description  in 
Ellen's  arid  epistolary  style.  When  her  letter  to  him 
came,  he  was  plunged  into  despair  because  she  had 
learned  that  he  would  have  to  pay  part  of  his  expenses  if 
he  drove  an  ambulance  on  the  French  front.  By  that 
time  his  sense  of  humor  was  in  such  total  eclipse  that 
he  saw  nothing  ridiculous  in  the  fact  that  he  could  not 
breathe  freely  another  hour  in  the  easy  good-cheer  of 
his  carefree  life.  He  revolved  one  scheme  after  an 
other  for  getting  money;  and  in  the  meantime  let 
no  week  go  by  without  giving  some  news  from  their 
"  heroic  fellow-townswoman  in  France."  Highland 
Springs,  the  traditional  rival  and  enemy  of  Marshallton, 
felt  outraged  by  the  tone  of  proprietorship  with  which 


1 68  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

Marshallton  people  bragged  of  their  delegate  in  France. 

So  it  happened  that  when  Ellen,  fearfully  tired,  fear 
fully  dusty  after  the  long  ride  in  the  day-coach,  and  fear 
fully  shabby  in  exactly  the  same  clothes  she  had  worn 
away,  stepped  wearily  off  the  train  at  the  well-remem 
bered  little  wooden  station,  she  found  not  only  Maggie, 
to  whom  she  had  telegraphed  from  New  York,  but  a 
large  group  of  other  people  advancing  upon  her  with 
outstretched  hands,  crowding  around  her  with  more  re 
spectful  consideration  than  she  had  ever  dreamed  of  see 
ing  addressed  to  her  obscure  person.  She  was  too  tired, 
too  deeply  moved  to  find  herself  at  home  again,  too  con 
fused,  to  recognize  them  all.  Indeed  a  number  of  them 
knew  her  only  by  her  fame  since  her  departure.  Ellen 
made  out  Maggie,  who  embraced  her,  weeping  as  loudly 
as  when  she  had  gone  away;  she  saw  Mrs.  Wilson  who 
kissed  her  very  hard  and  said  she  was  proud  to  know 
her;  she  saw  with  astonishment  that  Mr.  Pennypacker 
himself  had  left  business  in  office  hours!  He  shook  her 
hand  with  energy  and  said :  "  Well,  Miss  Boardman,  very 
glad  to  see  you  safe  back.  We'll  be  expecting  you  back 
at  the  old  stand  just  as  soon  as  you've  rested  up  from 
the  trip."  The  intention  of  the  poilu  who  had  taken  her 
in  his  arms  and  kissed  her,  had  not  been  more  cordial. 
Ellen  knew  this  and  was  touched  to  tears. 

There  was  the  reporter  from  the  Herald.,  too,  she  saw 
him  dimly  through  the  mist  before  her  eyes,  as  he  car 
ried  the  satchel,  the  same  he  had  carried  five  months 
before  with  the  same  things  in  it.  And  as  they  put 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  169 

her  in  the  "  hack  "  (she  had  never  ridden  in  the  hack 
before)  there  was  Mr.  Wentworth,  the  young  minister, 
who  leaned  through  the  window  and  said  earnestly :  "  I 
am  counting  on  you  to  speak  to  our  people  in  the  church 
parlors.  You  must  tell  us  about  things  over  there.'* 

Well,  she  did  speak  to  them!  She  was  not  the  same 
person,  you  see,  she  had  been  before  she  had  spent  those 
evenings  in  the  Gare  de  1'Est.  She  wanted  them  to  know 
about  what  she  had  seen,  and  because  there  was  no  one 
else  to  tell  them,  she  rose  up  in  her  shabby  suit  and  told 
them  herself.  The  first  thing  that  came  into  her  mind 
as  she  stood  before  them,  her  heart  suffocating  her,  her 
knees  shaking  under  her,  was  the  strangeness  of  seeing 
so  many  able-bodied  men  not  in  uniform,  and  so  many 
women  not  in  mourning.  She  told  them  this  as  a  be 
ginning  and  got  their  startled  attention  at  once,  the  men 
vaguely  uneasy,  the  women  divining  with  frightened 
sympathy  what  it  meant  to  see  all  women  in  black. 

Then  she  went  on  to  tell  them  about  the  work  for  the 
refugees  .  .  .  not  for  nothing  had  she  made  out  the 
card-catalogue  accounts  of  those  life-histories.  '  There 
was  one  old  woman  we  helped  .  .  .  she  looked  some  like 
Mrs.  Wilson's  mother.  She  had  lost  three  sons  and 
two  sons-in-law  in  the  war.  Both  of  her  daughters, 
widows,  had  been  sent  off  into  Germany  to  do  forced 
labor.  One  of  them  had  been  a  music-teacher  and  the 
other  a  dressmaker.  She  had  three  of  the  grandchildren 
with  her.  Two  of  them  had  disappeared  .  .  .  just  lost 


170  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

somewhere.  She  didn't  have  a  cent  left,  the  Germans 
had  taken  everything.  She  was  sixty-seven  years  old 
and  she  was  earning  the  children's  living  by  doing  scrub 
woman's  work  in  a  slaughter-house.  She  had  been  a 
school-teacher  when  she  was  young. 

"  There  were  five  little  children  in  one  family.  The 
mother  was  sort  of  out  of  her  mind,  though  the  doctors 
said  maybe  she  would  get  over  it.  They  had  been  under 
shell-fire  for  five  days,  and  she  had  seen  three  members 
of  her  family  die  there.  After  that  they  wandered 
around  in  the  woods  for  ten  days,  living  on  grass  and 
roots.  The  youngest  child  died  then.  The  oldest  girl 
was  only  ten  years  old,  but  she  took  care  of  them  all 
somehow  and  used  to  get  up  nights  when  her  mother  got 
crazy  thinking  the  shells  were  falling  again." 

Ellen  spoke  badly,  awkwardly,  haltingly.  She  told 
nothing  which  they  might  not  have  read,  perhaps  had 
read  in  some  American  magazine.  But  it  was  a  differ 
ent  matter  to  hear  such  stories  from  the  lips  of  Ellen 
Boardman,  born  and  brought  up  among  them.  Ellen 
Boardman  had  seen  those  people,  and  through  her  eyes 
Marshallton  looked  aghast  and  for  the  first  time  believed 
that  what  it  saw  was  real,  that  such  things  were  happen 
ing  to  real  men  and  women  like  themselves. 

When  she  began  to  tell  them  about  the  Gare  de  1'Est 
she  began  helplessly  to  cry,  but  she  would  not  stop  fcr 
that.  She  smeared  away  the  tears  with  her  handker 
chief  wadded  into  a  ball,  she  was  obliged  to  stop  fre 
quently  to  blow  her  nose  and  catch  her  breath,  but  she 


A  LITTLE  KANSAS  LEAVEN  171 

had  so  much  to  say  that  she  struggled  on,  saying  it  in  a 
shaking,  uncertain  voice,  quite  out  of  her  control. 
Standing  there  before  those  well-fed,  well-meaning, 
prosperous,  safe  countrymen  of  hers,  it  all  rose  before 
her  with  burning  vividness,  and  burningly  she  strove  to 
set  it  before  them.  It  had  all  been  said  far  better  than 
she  said  it,  eloquently  described  in  many  highly  paid 
newspaper  articles,  but  it  had  never  before  been  said  so 
that  Marshallton  understood  it.  Ellen  Boardman,  grace 
less,  stammering,  inarticulate,  yet  spoke  to  them  with  the 
tongues  of  men  and  angels  because  she  spoke  their  own 
language.  In  the  very  real,  very  literal  and  wholly  mi 
raculous  sense  of  the  words,  she  brought  the  war — 
home — to  them. 

When  she  sat  down  no  one  applauded.  The  women 
were  pale.  Some  of  them  had  been  crying.  The  men's 
faces  were  set  and  inexpressive.  Mr.  Wentworth  stood 
up  and  cleared  his  throat.  He  said  that  a  young  citizen 
of  their  town  (he  named  him,  the  young  reporter)  de 
sired  greatly  to  go  to  the  French  front  as  an  ambulance 
driver,  but  being  obliged  to  earn  his  living,  he  could  not 
go  unless  helped  out  on  his  expenses.  Miss  Board 
man  had  been  able  to  get  exact  information  about  that. 
Four  hundred  dollars  would  keep  him  at  the  front  for 
a  year.  He  proposed  that  a  contribution  should  be  taken 
up  to  that  end. 

He  himself  went  among  them,  gathering  the  contribu 
tions  which  were  given  in  silence.  While  he  counted 


172  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

them  afterwards,  the  young  reporter,  waiting  with  an 
anxious  face,  swallowed  repeatedly  and  crossed  and  un 
crossed  his  legs  a  great  many  times.  Before  he  had  fin 
ished  counting  the  minister  stopped,  reached  over  and 
gave  the  other  young  man  a  handclasp.  "  I  envy  you," 
he  said. 

He  turned  to  the  audience  and  announced  that  he  had 
counted  almost  enough  for  their  purpose  when  he  had 
come  upon  a  note  from  Mr.  Pennypacker  saying  that 
he  would  make  up  any  deficit.  Hence  they  could  con 
sider  the  matter  settled.  "  Very  soon,  therefore,  our 
town  will  again  be  represented  on  the  French  front." 

The  audience  stirred,  drew  a  long  breath,  and  broke 
into  applause. 

Whatever  the  rest  of  the  Union  might  decide  to  do, 
Marshallton,  Kansas,  had  come  into  the  war. 


EYES  FOR  THE  BLIND 

SHE  woke  in  the  morning  to  the  sound  of  her  alarm 
clock,  an  instrument  of  torture  which,  before  the  war, 
she  had  never  heard.  At  once  there  descended  upon  her 
two  overpowering  sensations,  one  an  intense  desire  to 
stay  in  bed  and  rest,  the  other  the  realization  that  she  had 
no  time  to  lose  if  she  was  to  be  at  her  office  on  time. 
She  was  up  at  once,  and  began  making  a  hasty  toilet 
with  cold  water.  It  was  so  hasty  that  she  had 
no  time  to  think,  even  in  passing,  of  the  old  days 
when  waking  up  meant  ringing  for  some  one  to  open 
shutters,  close  windows  and  bring  hot  water,  breakfast, 
and  the  mails.  By  the  time  she  had  finished  her  Spartan 
toilet,  her  concierge,  very  sleepy-eyed  and  frowsy,  rang 
at  the  door  and  handed  in  a  bowl  of  cafe  au  lait  and  a 
piece  of  bread,  with  the  morning  paper  folded  across  the 
tray.  The  Directrice  sat  down  in  her  cheerless  dining- 
room  and  ate  her  breakfast,  reading,  eagerly  at  first,  and 
then  grimly,  the  communique  of  the  day.  "  No  advance 
anywhere  along  the  lines;  a  few  coups-de-main  here  and 
there — indecisive  results."  Another  day  like  all  the 
others  had  begun,  a  day  when  hope  was  forbidden,  when 
the  only  thing  left  was  to  endure  and  do  the  task  at  hand. 
For  her,  personally,  there  was  nothing  to  fear  in  the  lists 

173 


174  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

of  the  dead,  because  she  had  found  there,  two  long  years 
before,  the  name  which  alone  gave  meaning  to  her  life. 

She  put  on  her  hat  without  looking  in  the  mirror. 
This  is  a  strange  action  in  a  Frenchwoman,  but  the  Di- 
rectrice  was  already  preoccupied  by  the  work  awaiting 
her  in  her  office.  As  she  walked  rapidly  along  through 
the  rain,  she  was  turning  over  in  her  mind  the  possibilities 
for  one  of  her  charges,  Philippe,  the  childlike  one  who 
was  perfectly  willing  to  sit  down  there  in  the  comfortable 
home  provided  for  him  and  allow  himself  to  be  forever 
supported.  It  was  not,  Heaven  knows,  that  our  Di- 
rectrice  would  not  have  liked  forever  and  ever  to  have 
him  supported  and  cared  for  like  any  child.  But  she 
had  the  instinctive  grasp  on  the  exigencies  of  human  na 
ture  which  is  characteristic  of  her  nation,  and  she  knew 
that  if  he  were  to  be  again  a  normal  human  being,  he 
must  be  roused  to  a  sense  of  responsibility  for  his  own 
life,  in  spite  of  the  dreadful  calamity  which  war  had 
brought  him.  But  how  could  he  be  aroused?  He  had 
shown  no  interest  in  learning  how  to  be  a  professional 
knitter;  he  had  only  dabbled  in  clay-modeling;  his  type 
writing  continued  indifferent — what  could  there  be  which 
she  had  not  yet  tried  ? 

Never  before,  until  the  war  took  away  not  only  the 
meaning  of  her  life  but  all  her  goods,  had  she  known 
what  it  was  to  walk  at  that  dismally  early  hour  in  the 
morning  through  a  dismally  rainy  street.  But  now  she 
was  so  absorbed  with  the  needs  of  another  that  she  did 
not  at  all  feel  the  rain  in  her  face  or  see  the  mud  on  her 


EYES  FOR  THE  BLIND  175 

shoes,  and  had  not  even  the  most  passing  pang  of  pity 
for  herself,  losing  her  youth  from  one  day  to  another, 
with  very  little  to  hope  for  and, — alas! — nothing  left  to 
fear. 

As  she  turned  into  the  door  of  her  institution,  she  had 
an  inspiration.  The  only  thing  to  do  for  Philippe  was  to 
turn  to  account  the  inimitable  charm  of  his  personality, 
since  that  was  about  all  the  equipment  he  seemed  to  have. 
Why  could  not  he  be  a  traveling  salesman?  But  how 
could  a  blind  man  be  a  traveling  salesman  ?  Ah,  that  was 
the  thing  for  the  Directrice  to  contrive !  That  was  why 
she  was  there! 

She  was,  as  usual,  the  first  person  to  arrive  at  her  of 
fice,  although  the  blind  men,  just  coming  out  from  break 
fast,  were  already  standing  idling  about  the  hall  before 
going  to  their  classes,  lighting  cigarettes  and  chatting. 
They  recognized  her  quick,  light,  steady  step,  and  all 
their  blind  and  mutilated  faces  lit  up  with  welcome.  Hers 
also.  Although  they  could  not  see  it,  she  gave  to  every 
one  the  smile,  the  animated  look,  the  pretty,  sideways 
toss  of  her  head,  the  coquettish  poise  of  her  upright  little 
figure,  which  she  would  have  given  to  him  seeing.  It 
was  strange  to  see  her  there,  all  those  blind  faces  turned 
towards  her,  and  hers  irradiating  a  light  and  warmth — 
Well,  perhaps,  they  saw  it,  after  all.  .  .  .  Then  she 
dismissed  them  to  their  work,  with  peremptory  affec 
tion.  "Off  with  you  now,  boys;  don't  stand  fooling 
around  here.  There  isn't  a  minute  to  lose,  with  all  you 


176  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

have  to  do."  They  nodded,  saluted,  and  dispersed  like 
obedient  children. 

She  went  into  her  office  to  begin  the  day's  work.  The 
light  which  had  transformed  her  face  died  out  into 
fatigue,  as  she  sat  opening  one  after  another  of  the 
innumerable  letters  which  lay  on  her  desk,  most  of  them 
pitiful,  some  of  them  very  foolish,  all  from  people  who 
were  clamoring  for  help.  The  stenographers  came  in; 
the  professors  began  to  arrive;  the  telephone  bell  rang 
tyrannically  over  and  over;  one  of  the  men  came  groping 
his  way  back  from  his  class  to  complain  fretfully  that  his 
teacher  had  treated  him  with  insufficient  respect;  another 
arrived,  his  cane  tapping  in  front  of  him,  beaming  with 
pride,  and  held  out  a  perfectly  typewritten  page  to  show 
his  progress;  a  third  one  limped  to  the  door  to  say  he  had 
a  sore  throat,  and  please  would  the  Directrice  take  care 
of  it  herself  and  not  turn  him  over  to  the  nurse,  who  did 
not  understand  him?  The  minutes  passed, — an  hour,  a 
precious  hour  was  gone,  and  nothing  yet  accomplished! 

The  telephone  rang  again,  the  Directrice  was  called  and 
received  over  the  wire  a  communication  from  a  lady  who 
announced  herself  as  the  Marquise  de  Rabat-Sigur,  nee 
Elizabeth  Watkins.  That  considerable  personage  said 
she  would  like  to  do  something  for  the  war-blind 
("  everybody  in  my  set  has  an  aveugle  de  guerre")  and 
on  being  questioned  as  to  her  competence,  stated  squarely 
that  all  she  could  do  was  to  take  them  out  for  walks,  and 
please,  if  she  did,  she  would  like  a  good-looking  one, 
not  one  of  those  with  the  dreadfully  mutilated  faces. 


EYES  FOR  THE  BLIND  177* 

The  Directrice  turned  away  from  the  telephone,  a  hard 
line  of  scorn  at  the  corner  of  her  lips,  her  eyes  very  tired 
and  old.  She  had  not  as  yet  been  able  to  attend  to  any 
of  her  letters. 

She  now  began  dictating  rapidly  the  answer  to  one  of 
them  when  the  bare-kneed  boy-scout  page  came  hur 
riedly  to  say  that  Pigier,  the  one  who  had  the  bad  face- 
wounds,  was  worse,  was  in  one  of  his  "  spells,"  and  the 
nurse  could  do  nothing  with  him.  Blindness  always 
comes  of  course  from  head-wounds,  and  head-wounds 
mean  the  disorganization  of  all  the  nervous  centers.  The 
Directrice  left  her  work  and  went  upstairs  into  the  sick 
man's  room  and  sat  down  by  his  bed.  The  great-shoul 
dered,  massively  muscled  fellow  clutched  at  her  like  a 
scared  child,  and  began  in  a  rapid,  hysteric  whisper  to 
tell  her  of  the  awful  things  he  saw  in  his  eternity  of 
blackness.  For  he  was  not  really  blind,  he  told  her,  he 
saw,  yes  he  saw,  but  only  not  what  was  really  there  .  .  . 
dreadful  things,  horrible  things,  dead  men  in  the  trenches 
after  an  attack,  corpses  rotting  in  the  rain,  artillery 
wagons  driving  headlong  over  men  only  half -dead — he 
told  all  these  visions  to  her,  all,  and  as  he  spoke  he  felt 
them  grow  faded,  harmless,  unreal.  But  she  grew  pale 
as  she  listened,  and  turned  rather  sick. 

When  he  had  poured  out  all  his  terrors  and  she  had 
assured  him — as  she  had  forty  times  before — that  they 
were  all  imaginary,  just  the  result  of  his  nerves  not  be 
ing  settled  yet;  that  as  soon  as  he  got  back  his  appetite 
and  could  take  more  exercise  out  of  doors,  and  learn 


178  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

to  roller  skate  in  the  gymnasium,  he  would  find  they  would 
all  disappear.  Having  transferred  to  her  all  his  horrors, 
he  felt  himself  immensely  lightened  and  comforted.  He 
promised  her  that  if  she  went  with  him  to  the  gymnasium, 
he  would  get  up  and  dress  and  see  if  he  could  learn  to 
stand  up  on  the  roller  skates.  She  left  him,  her  imagi 
nation  full  of  new  nightmare  images  to  beset  her  next 
sleepless  night,  and  hurried  down  to  her  office  again, 
making  a  hopeful  calculation  that  while  he  was  dressing 
— this  is  a  lengthy  process  with  a  newly  blinded  man- 
she  could  certainly  have  time  to  answer  some  letters. 

As  she  entered  her  office,  a  pretty  young  girl,  richly 
dressed,  with  a  sweet,  child's  face,  flushed  with  emotion, 
sprang  up,  grasped  her  arm  and  said,  in  a  trembling 
voice  of  nervous  determination :  "  Madame,  you  do  not 
know  me,  but  I  have  come  to  you  at  a  critical  moment  in 
my  life.  I  have  decided  that  I  will  either  go  into  a  con 
vent,  or  marry  a  blind  man.  I  have  plenty  of  money,  I 
can  support  a  blind  man."  At  the  expression  which  came 
into  the  face  of  the  Directrice,  her  voice  rose  hysteri 
cally.  "  Don't  laugh  at  me !  Don't  try  to  dissuade  me. 
I  detest  the  life  at  home.  My  family  do  not  understand 
me.  I  have  run  away  from  home  this  morning  to  tell 
you  this.  My  decision  is  irrevocable." 

The  Directrice,  feeling  herself  a  thousand  years  old  in 
worldly  wisdom,  summoned  all  her  patience  and  sat  down 
to  tell  her  what  she  had  told  all  the  other  pretty,  child- 
faced  young  ladies  who  had  come  with  such  fixed  deter 
mination.  She  said  clearly  and  firmly  that  it  was  not 


EYES  FOR  THE  BLIND  179 

to  be  thought  of;  that  her  visitor  was  far  too  young  to 
make  any  such  decision;  that  it  would  be  unfair  to  any 
blind  man  to  put  him  in  a  position  where  he  would  cer 
tainly  soon  feel  himself  a  terrible  drag  on  a  young  life; 
that  she  would  not  go  into  a  convent,  either,  but  would 
stay  at  home  with  her  parents,  like  a  sensible  girl,  until 
she  married  a  man  like  herself.  These  were  the  words 
she  pronounced,  very  simple,  common-sense,  conversa 
tional  words,  which  would  have  had  no  effect  in  any  one's 
else  mouth.  But  what  she  was  spoke  more  loudly  than 
what  she  said.  The  Directrice  did  not  wear  the  black 
and  penitential  garb  of  a  Mother  Superior,  but  she  had 
acquired,  through  intensive  experience,  all  of  a  Mother 
Superior's  firm,  penetrating  authority  and  calm  manner. 
Not  a  trace  of  the  amused  scorn  she  felt  for  the  silly 
child  penetrated  to  the  surface  of  her  quiet  manner.  In 
ten  minutes,  the  girl  was  crying,  quite  relieved  that  her 
visit  had  come  to  nothing,  and  the  Directrice  was  calling 
for  a  cab  to  take  her  home.  She  herself  put  the  weeping 
child  into  the  carriage,  and  stood  looking  after  it  with  a 
tolerant  smile  on  her  firm  lips.  "  Was  I  ever  as  young  as 
that?"  she  asked  herself  as  she  went  back  to  her  office. 
As  she  turned  again  to  the  letter  from  the  important 
members  of  the  American  colony  who  wanted  to  be  put 
on  the  Governing  Committee  of  the  institution  because 
of  the  other  distinguished  names  there,  her  blind  man, 
the  one  who  had  had  the  horrors,  appeared  at  the  door, 
dressed,  still  animated  with  the  new  energy  given  him 
by  his  Directrice,  and  held  out  his  hand  to  her.  She 


i8o  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

jumped  up  laughing — how  could  she  manage  that  laugh ! 
— and  told  him  he  looked  as  though  he  were  leading  her 
out  to  dance.  By  this  device  she  managed  so  that,  while 
in  reality  leading  him,  he  seemed  to  be  leading  her  down 
the  steps  and  across  the  courtyard,  to  the  gymnasium. 

While  the  instructor  put  on  his  roller  skates  and  he 
started  on  his  first  round,  she  stayed,  her  face  all 
a-sparkle  with  fun  and  interest,  calling  out  joking  encour 
agements  to  him,  and  making  such  merry  fun  of  his 
awkwardness  that  he  laughed  back  at  her.  One  quite 
forgot  for  the  moment  that  he  had  not  only  no  eyes, 
but  very  little  face  left. 

Then,  seeing  him  well  started,  already  taking  an  inter 
est  in  the  new  sport,  she  turned  back  across  the  court 
yard.  Now  that  it  was  no  longer  needed,  the  sparkle 
and  animation  had  all  gone  from  her  face  again.  She 
looked  very  old  and  tired,  and  cross  and  severe ;  and  one 
of  the  volunteer  teachers  (a  wealthy  woman,  coming  in 
to  give  a  half-hour  of  English  in  the  intervals  of  her 
shopping  and  dressmaking  expeditions)  thought  what  a 
disagreeable-looking  woman  the  Directrice  was. 

Then,  for  half  an  hour,  she  was,  by  some  extraordi 
nary  chance,  left  uninterrupted  in  her  office,  and  dic 
tated  rapidly  the  answers  to  her  morning  mail.  In  order 
to  accomplish  as  much  as  possible  in  this  unheard-of 
period  of  quiet,  she  became  a  sort  of  living  flame  of  at 
tention.  The  real  meaning  of  each  letter  was  sucked  out 
of  it  by  a  moment's  intense  scrutiny.  She  had  but  a  mo 
ment,  in  each  case,  to  make  the  decision,  sometimes  a 


EYES  FOR  THE  BLIND  181 

very  important  one.  The  wealthy  American  lady  who 
wanted  to  be  on  the  Committee  was  referred  vaguely  to 
some  far-distant  authority,  who  would  in  turn  refer 
her  to  some  one  else,  and  so  put  her  off  without  offending 
her;  because  if  it  is  possible,  wealthy  people,  no  matter 
how  preposterous  or  self-seeking,  must  not  be  offended. 
The  money  which  Providence  has  so  curiously  placed  in 
their  hands  means  too  much  to  the  needy  charges  in  the 
care  of  the  Directrice.  She  who,  before  the  earthquake 
changes  in  her  life,  had  been  so  scornful  of  self-seeking 
and  pretentiousness,  had  now  learnt  a  hundred  adroit 
ways  of  setting  those  evil  forces  to  turn  the  wheels  of 
her  mill.  This  was  the  part  of  her  work  she  hated  the 
most.  .  .  . 

Another  letter  was  from  a  blinded  soldier  in  one  of  the 
hospitals,  sent  by  one  of  his  friends,  since  the  authorities 
of  the  hospital  would  not  permit  him  to  write.  He 
wanted  to  come  to  the  Directrice's  institution,  and  a 
clique  in  the  hospital,  who  were  jealous  of  it,  were  com 
bining  in  a  thousand  subterranean  ways  to  prevent  his 
going  there.  It  is  very  easy  for  two  or  three  seeing 
people  to  circumvent  a  blind  man.  The  Directrice  did 
not  answer  this  letter — she  put  it  aside  with  a  bright 
light  of  battle  in  her  eyes  and  a  slightly  distended  nostril. 

Four  begging  letters  from  people  who  had  no  claim 
on  her  or  the  institution;  two  from  inventors — one  of 
whom  had  quite  simply  discovered  the  secret  of  perpetual 
motion,  which,  he  thought,  would  be  of  especial  benefit 
to  blind  people, — the  other  had  invented  a  typewriter 


182  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

wonderfully  adapted  for  the  blind,  a  detailed  description 
of  which  he  forwarded.  In  her  lightning  survey  the 
Directrice  perceived  that  the  machine  weighed  seventy 
pounds,  threw  the  letter  violently  in  the  waste-paper 
basket,  and  turned  to  the  next.  Over  this  one  she  lin 
gered  a  moment,  her  face  softening  again.  It  was  from 
one  of  her  graduates,  who  had  come  into  the  institution 
with  the  horrors,  who  had  clung  to  her  like  a  dead  weight 
for  the  first  month  of  his  stay,  but  who,  before  the  end 
of  his  six  months'  sojourn  there,  had  become  perfect 
master  of  the  knitting  machine.  Just  before  leaving,  he 
had  married  the  nurse  who  had  taken  care  of  him  in  the 
hospital,  the  Directrice  being,  of  course,  chief  witness 
at  the  wedding.  And  now,  after  a  year,  he  wrote  her  to 
make  a  report.  They  earned  their  living  well,  he  and 
his  wife,  he  had  bought  three  other  knitting  machines  and 
had  a  little  workroom  in  his  house,  where  he,  his  wife 
and  two  employees  carried  on  a  lucrative  business;  that 
is,  his  wife  did  until  the  arrival  of  a  baby — such  a 
healthy,  hearty  little  boy  whom  they  had  called  Victor, 
because  the  Directrice's  name  is  Victorine;  and  please, 
will  she  be  his  godmother?  .  .  .  Yes,  there  are  good 
moments  in  the  life  of  the  Directrice,  moments  when 
there  is  no  mask  on  her  face,  either  of  courageous  smil 
ing  or  of  bitter  fatigue;  when  she  is,  for  just  a  moment, 
a  very  happy  woman,  happy  in  a  curious,  impersonal 
way  which  was  as  little  within  her  capacities  before  the 
war  as  all  the  rest  of  her  laborious,  surcharged  life. 
And  then,  somehow,  it  was  lunch  time.  Where  had 


EYES  FOR  THE  BLIND  183 

the  morning  gone?  She  must  needs  go  in  now  and 
sit  down  at  one  of  the  long  tables,  looking  up  and  down 
the  line  of  blind  faces,  watching  the  fumbling  hands  try 
ing  so  hard  to  learn  the  lesson  of  self-reliance  in  the  new 
blackness.  She  had  acquired  an  almost  automatic 
dexterity  in  turning  a  cup  so  that  the  handle  will  be  in 
the  right  place  for  the  groping  hand,  in  cutting  up  a 
morsel  of  meat  on  the  plate  of  the  man  beside  her,  while 
engaging  him  in  lively  conversation  so  that  he  shall  not 
notice  it,  in  slipping  the  glass  under  the  water  carafe 
which  is  being  awkwardly  tilted  by  one  of  those  dreadful 
searching  hands.  Through  some  last  prodigy  of  dexter 
ity  she  ate  her  own  lunch  while  she  did  this.  There  were 
four  of  the  long  tables,  and  every  day  she  must  sit  at  a 
different  one,  or  the  others  will  be  jealous. 

After  lunch  she  stood  for  a  few  minutes  in  the  big 
hall,  laughing  and  talking*  with  the  men,  helping  them 
light  their  cigarettes,  listening  to  their  complaints 
or  their  accounts  of  the  triumphs  of  the  morning.  As 
she  went  back  into  her  office,  she  saw  that  one  of  them 
was  following  her,  and  her  experienced  eye  saw  by  his 
shambling  gait,  by  the  listless  way  in  which  he  handled 
his  little  bamboo  cane,  by  every  slack  line  of  his  body, 
what  the  trouble  was.  He  had  the  <(  cafard  " — the  blues 
—and  nobody  could  do  anything  for  him  but  the  Di- 
rectrice.  She  was  very  tired  herself,  and  for  just  a 
moment  she  reflected  that  if  she  had  an  instant's  time, 
she  would  probably  have  the  worst  fit  of  "  cafard  "  ever 
known  to  man.  But  she  had  not  an  instant's  time,  so, 


1 84  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

without  seeming  to  note  the  cloud  on  his  face,  she  pulled 
open  the  drawer  where  she  always  kept  some  device 
against  these  evil  hours.  This  time  it  was  a  new  inven 
tion  for  writing  Braille  by  hand.  She  told  her  "  pension- 
naire  "  that  she  was  so  glad  he  happened  to  come,  be 
cause  she  had  been  wanting  his  opinion  on  the  advisabil 
ity  of  this.  "  See,  it  is  intended  to  be  used  thus," — she 
put  it  in  his  hands,—  "  and  the  little  bar  is  made  of  such 
and  such  an  alloy  instead  of  the  aluminum  that  is  usu 
ally  used,  with  such  and  such  claimed  benefits."  Did  he 
think,  now,  that  it  would  be  better  than  the  standard  one 
they  were  using,  and  what  did  he  think  about  the  advis 
ability  of  giving  the  inventor  a  chance  to  make  a  few 
samples?  With  that,  she  was  launched  upon  a  history  of 
the  inventor's  life,  what  a  hard  time  he  had  had,  how 
eager  he  was  to  do  something  for  the  blind,  and  she 
wondered  if  perhaps  her  blind  men  there  would  be  will 
ing  to  give  him  an  interview.  The  inventor  would  con 
sider  it  such  an  honor.  But  in  the  meantime,  of  course, 
let  him  look  carefully  at  the  little  invention,  so  that  he 
can  have  the  best  judgment  possible  to  give  the  inventor. 
The  west  wind  of  this  new  interest  in  another's  life,  this 
new  importance  for  himself,  blew  away  visibly  before 
her  eyes  the  black  clouds  of  disheartenment.  Her  blind 
man  was  only  a  boy,  after  all.  He  took  the  little  Braille 
plaque  under  his  arm  and,  tapping  briskly  before  him, 
felt  his  way  to  the  door,  saying,  over  his  shoulder  im 
portantly,  that  he  would  try  to  find  half  an  hour's  time 
to  give  the  inventor,  although  his  days  were  really  very 


EYES  FOR  THE  BLIND  185 

much  occupied.  The  Directrice  looked  after  him  with 
speculative  eyes.  "  Now  I  have  used  up  that  device, 
what  shall  I  do  for  the  next  one?  " 

Suddenly  she  realized  that  this  was  the  visiting  hour 
for  the  hospital  where  the  blind  man  was  being  held  in 
durance  by  the  little  plot  against  him.  The  fighting  light 
came  into  her  eyes  again,  she  clapped  on  her  hat — you 
will  note  it  is  the  second  time  this  day  she  has  put  on  her 
hat  without  looking  at  herself  in  the  glass — and  swept 
out  to  do  combat,  all  her  firm,  small,  erect  person  ani 
mated  by  the  same  joy  in  battle  which  had  sent  her 
crusading  forefathers  into  the  fight  singing  and  tossing 
their  swords  up  into  the  air.  She  was  gone  an  hour  and 
a  half,  and  when  she  came  back,  although  she  looked  sev 
eral  degrees  more  tired  even  than  before,  a  grim  satis 
faction  sat  upon  her  hard,  small  mouth.  She  had  won 
her  point.  The  blind  man  was  to  be  allowed  to  come. 

But  there  was  Philippe,  the  man  with  whom  she  had 
begun  the  day.  By  looking  out  of  the  window,  she  could 
see  him  idling,  as  usual,  in  the  garden,  ostensibly  taking 
a  lesson  in  English  from  a  volunteer  professor,  and  in 
reality  doing  his  best  mildly  to  flirt  with  her.  The  Di 
rectrice  frowned  and  smiled  at  the  same  time.  What  an 
absurd,  lovable  fellow  he  was!  Thank  Heaven,  there 
was  one  of  her  "  pensionnaires  "  whom  it  was  impossible 
to  take  tragically.  She  gave  a  few  orders  for  the  dis 
position  of  the  office  work,  wondered  when  she  would 
ever  have  time  really  to  go  over  her  accounts  thoroughly, 
and  went  out  again  to  interview  the  head  of  a  big  whole- 


1 86  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

sale  groceries  firm.  In  the  old  days,  when  she  and  hers 
lived  in  a  chateau,  they  bought  en  gros  their  supplies 
from  this  firm,  and  the  head  of  it  still  had  a  respectful 
attention  for  any  one  of  her  name.  This  time  she  looked 
at  herself  when  she  put  on  her  hat,  looked  very  intently, 
rearranged  her  hair,  noticed  with  impatience,  quite  im 
personally,  that  the  gray  was  beginning  to  show  more 
every  day,  put  on  a  little  touch  of  powder  and  bit  her  lips 
to  make  them  red.  Then  she  took  a  fresh  pair  of  gloves 
and  put  on  a  crisp  veil.  Thus  accoutered,  looking  inimi 
tably  chic,  the  grande  dame  entirely  in  spite  of  her  few 
inches,  she  went  forth  to  triumph.  After  a  long  con- 
versation  with  the  big  grocer,  she  extracted  from  him  a 
promise  to  try  Philippe  as  a  traveling  salesman.  She 
felt  very  young  and  almost  gay,  as  she  brought  back 
this  news.  "If  Philippe  cannot  sell  anything  to  any 
body,  whether  he  wants  it  or  not,  I  am  much  mistaken," 
she  thought,  watching  him  out  of  the  window,  wheedle 
a  would-be  stern  professor  of  typewriting  into  lounging 
there  instead  of  going  back  for  the  lesson.  Somehow,  in 
the  intervals  of  this  day,  which  you  will  see  to  have  been 
reasonably  full,  she  had  worked  out  ail  the  details  with 
what  device  in  Braille  Philippe  could  take  down  his  or 
ders,  what  kind  of  a  typewriter  he  could  carry  about 
him  to  copy  them,  how  he  could  be  met  at  the  station  by 
such  a  volunteer  to  settle  him  in  his  hotel,  and  at  the 
other  station  by  another — our  Directrice  had  a  network 
of  acquaintances  all  over  France.  Philippe  came  stroll 
ing  into  the  room,  very  handsome,  showing  only  by  the 


EYES  FOR  THE  BLIND  187 

unmoving  brightness  of  his  clear  dark  eyes  that  he  was 
blind.  "  See  here,  Philippe,"  she  said,  pulling  him  into  a 
chair  beside  her  as  though  he  were  a  child. 

'''  Yes,  yes."  Philippe  agreed  to  the  new  plan.  "  There 
is  something  really  sensible!  That's  a  life  that  amounts 
to  something !  That  is  something  that  a  man  can  do  and 
take  an  interest  in !  Thank  Heaven,  I  never  need  to  take 
another  English  lesson  as  long  as  I  live.  I  will  go  at 
once  and  work  hard  at  my  typewriter !  How  soon  before 
I  can  begin?  You  know  that  I  am  engaged.  I  must 
earn  enough  to  be  married  as  soon  as  possible."  Yes, 
she  knew,  although  she  knew  also  that  it  was  the  third 
time  that  Philippe  had  been  engaged  to  be  married  since 
he  was  blinded!  She  reflected  how  curiously  little  a 
temperament  like  his  is  changed  by  any  outward  event. 

Just  at  this  moment  of  amused  relaxation,  when  the 
Directrice  was  looking  young  and  carefree,  she  glanced 
out  of  her  window  and  saw  a  very  handsomely  dressed, 
tall  woman  descend  from  a  very  handsome  limousine 
and  make  ready  to  enter.  Have  I  said  that  our  Directrice 
can  look  very  cross  and  tired?  She  can  also  look  terri 
fying,  in  spite  of  her  small  stature. 

She  went  rapidly  down  the  steps  and  across  the  court 
yard,  giving  the  impression  of  a  very  much  determined 
mother-hen  bristling  in  every  feather  to  defend  her 
brood.  On  her  side,  the  woman  who  came  to  meet  her 
gave  the  impression  of  a  hawk,  with  a  thin,  white  face, 
whitened  to  pallor  by  powder,  and  with  shallow,  black 
eyes. 


i88  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

"  Madame,"  said  the  Directrice,  "  you  are  not  to  enter 
here  to-day,  nor  any  other  day.*' 

"  You  have  no  right  to  keep  me  out,"  said  the  other. 

The  Directrice  did  not  deny  this;  but  she  repeated 
sternly :  "  You  are  not  to  enter  here,  nor  to  see  Auguste 
Leveau  anywhere  at  all.  He  has  a  wife  and  two  chil 
dren.  He  is  not  only  blind,  but  as  weak  as  water.  But 
I  am  not.  You  are  not  to  enter." 

The  woman  in  the  sables  broke  out  into  a  storm 
of  vulgar  language,  at  which  the  Directrice  advanced 
upon  her  with  so  threatening  an  air  that  she  literally 
turned  tail  and  ran  back  to  her  car,  although  she  was 
shouting  over  her  shoulder  as  she  fled.  The  small,  erect 
figure  stood  tense  and  straight  like  a  sentry  on  guard 
until  the  car  moved  away,  the  occupant  shouting  out  of 
the  window  the  direst  threats  of  revenge. 

A  gleaming  car  came  up  from  another  direction,  and 
another  handsomely  dressed  woman  descended,  greeting 
the  Directrice  in  an  affectionate,  confidential  manner. 
She  said :  "Oh,  my  dear,  I  am  so  glad  to  find  you  here. 
I  always  come  to  you,  you  know,  when  I  am  in  difficul 
ties  !  What  would  happen  to  me  without  your  good  ad 
vice  !  A  friend  of  mine  from  the  provinces,  an  engineer 
by  profession,  wants  so  much  to  come  and  see  your 
weaving  workroom,  because  he  is  interested  in  machinery 
and  thinks  perhaps  he  may  do  something  for  the  blind 
in  that  part  of  France — not  here,  you  know,  not  the 
slightest  idea  of  stealing  your  ideas  and  duplicating  your 
work  here.  When  will  you  allow  us  to  come,  when  he 


EYES  FOR  THE  BLIND  189 

can  really  look  at  the  machinery  without  bothering  the 
men  ?  "  That  was  what  she  said,  but  this  was  what  the 
Directrice  understood  very  distinctly :  "  My  search  for 
the  Legion  d'Honneur  is  getting  on  famously.  If  I  can 
only  just  add  a  weaving-room  to  my  outfit  before  the 
Minister  of  the  Interior  comes  for  his  visit,  I  am  sure 
I'll  get  the  red  ribbon,  and  then  I  won't  have  to  bother 
any  more  about  these  tiresome  war-blind." 

The  Directrice  answered  guardedly:  "  Why,  yes;  come 
into  my  office,  and  I  will  see  what  will  be  the  best  time." 

As  she  walked  across  the  courtyard  with  her  visitor, 
chatting  about  the  difficulties  of  war-time  housekeeping 
in  Paris,  she  was  thinking:  "  Yes,  she  only  wants  it  to 
make  a  temporary  show  in  order  to  get  the  Legion  of 
Honor.  But  what  of  that !  Let  her  have  it.  But  if  she 
opens  a  weaving-room,  she  must  have  blind  there  to  op 
erate  the  looms,  and  if  she  takes  them  up  only  to  drop 
them,  what  will  become  of  them  ?  Let  me  see  what  I  can 
do  about  that.  Perhaps  this  is  the  way  to  get  her  to  pay 
for  the  installation  of  a  new  weaving-room.  As  soon  as 
she  gets  what  she  wants  out  of  it,  we  could  perhaps  take 
it  over  and  add  the  men  to  the  number  we  care  for  here. 
I  wonder  if  the  American  Committee  would  be  willing 
to  send  more  money  for  that.  Yes,  it's  worth  taking 
the  risk." 

But  nothing  of  this  elaborate  calculation  appeared  in 
her  smooth,  affable  manner  as,  having  come  to  her  de 
cision,  she  announced,  after  gravely  looking  through  a 
card  catalogue,  that  Thursday  afternoon  at  a  certain  hour 


igo  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

would  be  the  best  time  to  see  the  looms.  "  And  if  you 
don't  mind,  Mrs.  Wangton,"  she  said,  "  I  am  just  going 
to  treat  you  like  an  old  friend  of  the  institution  and  let 
you  and  your  engineer  wander  about  at  your  pleasure, 
without  anybody  bothering  to  escort  you."  That  was 
what  she  said.  What  she  thought  was :  "  There,  that  will 
give  them  a  chance  to  steal  the  names  of  the  makers  and 
the  dimensions  of  the  looms  as  much  as  they  please." 

Her  visitor  confounded  herself  in  effusive  expressions 
of  gratitude  and  friendliness,  which  the  Directrice  re 
ceived  with  a  smile.  She  went  away,  sweeping  her  velvet 
gown  over  the  stone  steps  and  looking  down  with  antici 
patory  eyes  on  that  spot  of  her  well-filled  bosom  where 
"she  hoped  to  pin  the  coveted  red  ribbon.  The  Directrice 
let  her  go  with  almost  an  audible  sniff  of  contempt,  and 
turned  again  to  work. 

This  time  it  was  a  plan  to  be  worked  out  whereby  the 
blind  could  learn  certain  phases  of  the  pottery  trade  at 
Sevres.  It  involved  a  number  of  formalities  and  ad 
ministrative  difficulties  which  only  one  who  has  been  in 
contact  with  French  bureaucratic  methods  can  faintly 
imagine.  Our  Directrice  plunged  into  it  headlong,  and 
did  not  stir  from  her  desk  until  she  saw  with  a  start 
that  it  was  dinner  time.  And  she  had  not  yet  looked 
over  her  accounts,  the  complicated  accounts  of  a  big, 
expensive,  many-arteried  institution.  However,  long 
ago,  all  her  friends  had  stopped  asking  her  to  go  to  din 
ner  or  to  go  to  hear  music.  They  had  learned  that  she 
rarely  spent  the  evening  in  any  other  way  than  finishing 


EYES  FOR  THE  BLIND  191 

up  what  work  she  had  not  found  time  to  do  during  the 
day.  She  was  assured  of  several  hours  more  of  quiet. 

She  went  out  to  dinner  (one  meal  a  day  in  the  com 
pany  of  many  mutilated  and  blinded  men  is  as  much  as 
one  woman  can  stand)  and  had  a  solitary  meal  in  a  quiet 
restaurant,  turning  her  glass  about  meditatively  between 
the  courses  and  wondering  if  she  dared  ask  enough  from 
the  philanthropic  American  manufacturer  to  settle  Benoit 
in  the  country.  With  his  tendency  to  tuberculosis,  that 
was  the  only  safe  life  for  him  and  his  family.  She  made 
a  mental  calculation  of  what  his  pension  would  come  to, 
and  how  much  he  could  earn  by  his  trade.  Then,  if  he 
kept  chickens,  and  a  garden,  and  rabbits,  and  if  he  could 
get  a  house  for  six  thousand  francs  ...  by  the  time 
she  had  finished  her  dinner  she  had  thought  out  a  pian 
and  a  definite  and  businesslike  proposition  to  put  to  the 
well-disposed  American.  Out  of  the  depth  of  her  ex 
perience  with  philanthropic  people,  she  said  to  herself 
as  she  walked  out :  "  I  think  I'd  better  tell  him  that  we 
will  put  a  bronze  plaque  on  the  house  announcing  that  it 
is  his  gift  to  one  of  the  war-blind.  That  ought  to  settle 
him." 

At  her  office  the  evening  passed  very  rapidly,  between 
her  account  books  and  the  sauntering  in  and  out  of  one 
and  another  of  the  blind  men.  At  ten  o'clock,  tired  to 
the  marrow  of  her  bones,  she  stood  up,  dreading  the  ef 
fort  to  get  home  and  get  to  bed,  and  yet  looking  forward 
to  sleep  as  the  one  certain  blessing  of  life.  As  she  went 
out  of  the  door  she  saw  two  shadowy  forms  standing  in 


192  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

the  summer  starlight,  and  recognized  two  of  her  charges. 
"  Come,  come,  children/'  she  said;  "  it  is  bedtime.  You 
must  get  to  bed  and  sleep  and  get  back  your  strength." 

"  But  we  can't  sleep/'  one  of  them  told  her.  "  We  go 
to  bed  and  lie  awake  and  get  the  f  cafard '  worse  and 
worse/'  The  other  one  suggested  timidly:  "  We  thought 
that  perhaps,  before  you  went  home,  you  might  take  us 
for  a  little  turn  about  the  lake  in  the  park?  "  Our  Direc- 
trice  accomplished  the  last  violent  action  of  her  violent 
day.  There  was  not  an  instant's  hesitation  before  she 
said  cordially :  "  That's  an  excellent  idea !  Just  what  I 
would  like  to  do  myself.  One  always  sleeps  so  much  bet 
ter  for  a  bit  of  a  walk  in  the  fresh  air/' 

Taking  one  on  one  arm  and  the  other  on  the  other, 
she  set  off,  the  two  men  towering  above  her  little  upright 
figure.  At  first  they  talked  as  they  strolled  beside  the 
little  lake.  Then,  as  the  Directrice  had  hoped,  the  en 
chantment  of  the  hot,  still  night  fell  on  them  all.  The 
men  walked  silently,  breathing  in  the  good  smell  of  the 
stirred  earth  and  watered  paths.  Their  blind  eyes  looked 
steadily  into  the  blackness,  no  blacker  than  their  every 
day;  their  scarred,  disfigured  faces  were  hidden  by  the 
darkness. 

The  Directrice  looked  up  at  the  stars,  and,  for  the  first 
time  in  all  that  long  day,  thought  for  an  instant  of  her 
self.  The  night  brought  to  her  a  sudden  stabbing  recol 
lection  of  another  night,  before  the  war,  before  the  end 
of  the  world,  when  the  starlight  had  fallen  white  on  the 
clear  road  leading  her  straight  and  sure  to  her  heart's 


EYES  FOR  THE  BLIND  193 

desire.  The  road  before  her  feet  now  seemed  as  black 
as  that  before  her  blind  men.  But  she  stepped  out 
bravely  and  held  her  head  high. 

The  blind  men  leaned  on  her  more  and  more.  She 
could  feel  by  the  touch  of  their  hands  on  her  arms,  that 
they  were  relaxing,  that  the  softness  of  the  night  air 
had  undone  the  bitter  tension  of  their  nerves.  Now  was 
the  time  to  take  them  back.  Now  they  would  sleep  well. 

u  Come,  my  friends,"  she  said,  and  led  them  back  to 
their  door,  through  which,  the  next  morning,  she  would 
enter  early  to  another  such  day  as  the  one  she  had  just 
passed.  And  after  that  another,  and  then  another.  .  .  . 

In  her  bed,  that  hot  night,  in  the  stuffy  little  Paris 
bedroom,  she  was  quite  too  tired  to  sleep,  and  so,  knit 
ting  her  forehead  in  the  blackness,  she  wondered  how  she 
could  best  place  Brousseau,  he  who  had  a  weak  heart, 
and  three  little  children  dependent  on  him. 


THE  FIRST  TIME  AFTER 

THE  little  newspaper  in  his  home  town  put  the  matter 
thus :  "  Our  young  fellow-citizen  Louis  Vassard  has  re 
turned  from  the  hospital  to  his  home.  He  received  a  bad 
head-wound  in  the  battle  of  Verdun  and  unfortunately 
has  lost  his  eyesight. " 

Of  course  the  family  meant  to  keep  from  him  this 
casual  method  of  announcing  the  end  of  his  world,  as  they 
meant  to  keep  everything  from  the  newly  blinded  man, 
but  he  overheard  the  item  being  read  aloud  in  the  kitchen, 
and  took  a  savage  pleasure  in  its  curt  brevity.  He  liked 
it  better,  he  told  himself  disdainfully,  than  the  "  sym 
pathy  "  which  had  surrounded  him  since  his  return  home. 
He  cast  about  for  an  adjective  hateful  enough,  and  found 
it :  "  snivelling  sympathy  " — that  was  the  word.  He  re 
joiced  in  its  ugliness,  all  his  old  sensitive  responsiveness 
curdled  into  rage. 

The  hospital  had  been  hell,  nothing  less,  intolerable 
physical  agony  constantly  renewed;  and  of  course  home, 
where  he  was  petted  and  made  much  of  and  treated  like 
a  sick  child,  home  was  not  hell;  but  sickened  and  em 
bittered,  resenting  with  a  silent  ferocity  the  commisera 
tions  of  those  about  him,  he  felt  sometimes  that  hell  was 
the  better  place  of  the  two. 

The  most  galling  of  all  his  new  humiliations  was  that 

194 


THE  FIRST  TIME  AFTER  195 

he  was  never  allowed  to  be  alone.  His  ears,  sharpened 
like  all  his  other  senses  by  the  loss  of  his  sight,  heard 
the  silly  whispering  voices  at  the  door.  "  I  can't  stay 
any  longer/'  whispered  his  aunt,  who  for  an  hour  had 
been  stupefying  him  with  her  dreary  gabble;  "  come,  it's 
your  turn,"  and  he  heard  the  dragging  step  of  his  old 
cousin  advancing  with  a  stifled  sigh  to  do  his  duty  by 
their  martyred  hero.  Or  it  was  the  light  irregular  step 
of  his  little  sister,  irritated  at  being  forced  to  do  what 
would  have  been  a  pleasure  if  she  had  been  left  free. 

He  dared  not  protest  against  this  as  hotly  as  he  felt, 
because,  his  self-control  hanging  by  a  thread,  he  knew 
that  if  he  let  himself  go  at  any  point  he  would  be  lost, 
would  be  raving  and  shrieking  to  be  killed  like  the  man 
in  the  bed  next  him  at  the  hospital.  He  swallowed  down 
his  rage  and  his  humiliation  and  only  said  coldly :  "  You 
don't  need  to  mount  guard  on  me  like  that,  all  the  time. 
I'm  blind,  I  know,  but  I'm  not  an  imbecile  ...  yet ! " 
He  shocked  them  by  his  brutal,  outspoken  use  of  the 
word,  and  they  drove  him  frantic  by  beating  about  the 
bush  to  avoid  it,  always  saying  to  others  that  he  "had 
had  a  bad  head-wound  and  his  eyes  were  affected."  He 
said  once  sternly :  "  Why  should  you  think  I'm  ashamed 
to  hear  the  word?  You  don't  suppose  it's  any  doings 
of  mine,  being  blind !  " 

But  no  matter  how  brusquely  or  roughly  he  spoke  he 
could  never  anger  them.  He  felt  often  and  often  that 
if  only  he  could  hurt  them,  startle  them  into  irritability, 
he  would  be  relieved.  But  they  never  varied  from  the 


ig6  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

condescending  amiability  one  shows  to  children  and  sick 
people.  He  sickened  and  shivered  at  the  thought  of  the 
glances  of  pitying  comprehension  with  which  they  prob 
ably  accompanied  those  never- vary  ing  soft  answers. 

And  always  they  stayed  with  him !  Even  when  for  a 
few  moments  they  pretended  to  go  away  and  leave  him, 
he  heard  the  breathing  and  the  imperceptible  stirrings 
of  some  one  left  on  guard.  Or  he  imagined  that  he 
heard  them,  and  scorned  to  grope  his  way  to  see.  In 
stead  he  sat  motionless,  his  mask  of  pride  grimmer  and 
harder  than  ever. 

Next  after  their  always  being  there,  he  hated  their 
efforts  to  cheer  him  up.  That  had  been  the  phrase  of  the 
doctor  at  the  hospital,  when  they  went  there  to  take 
him  away :  "  Now  he  must  be  cheered  up.  He  mustn't 
be  left  to  brood.  He  needs  cheerful  company  about 
him."  Of  course  there  was  his  mother  .  .  .  and  he 
was  so  young  that  only  a  few  years  of  intense  growth 
separated  him  from  the  time  when  he  ran  to  his  mother 
for  consolation.  Certainly  his  mother  could  not  be  ac 
cused  of  attempting  too  much  to  cheer  him  up,  the  poor 
mother  who,  try  as  she  might,  had  not  yet  mastered 
herself  so  that  she  could  command  her  voice  when  she 
looked  into  the  tragic  sightless  face  of  her  son.  Himself 
poised  on  the  brink  of  hysteria,  he  dreaded  more  than 
anything  in  the  world  the  sound  of  that  break  in  his 
mother's  voice.  Oh  yes,  he  realized  it  perfectly,  it  was 
not  their  fault,  it  was  not  that  they  did  the  wrong  things, 
it  was  only  that  he  hated  everything  they  did,  if  they 


THE  FIRST  TIME  AFTER  197 

spoke  cheerfully  or  wept,  were  silent  or  laughed.  He 
was  like  a  man  all  one  raw  sore,  to  whom  every  touch 
is  torture. 

He  often  woke  up  in  the  morning  feeling  that  he  could 
not  go  on  another  day,  that  he  could  not.  .  .  .  Every 
one  about  him  commented  on  his  remarkable  quiet.  "  He 
never  complains,  he  talks  about  all  kinds  of  things,  he 
has  the  newspaper  read  to  him  every  morning,"  they 
reported  to  visitors.  They  did  not  see  the  sweat  on  his 
forehead  as  he  listened. 

One  day  they  had  taken  him  out  of  doors,  on  the 
bench  at  the  end  of  the  garden.  It  was  his  little  sister's 
turn  to  "  be  with  poor  Louis,"  the  little  sister  who  would 
have  been  so  unconsciously  droll  and  diverting  if  she 
could  have  been  natural.  He  said  to  her :  "  Oh,  go  and 
play,  Celia !  Why  don't  you  bring  your  hoop  out  here  ? 
Or  your  jumping-rope?"  But  the  conscientious,  sensi 
tive  child,  drugged  by  the  thick  fumes  of  self -sacrifice 
which  filled  the  house,  was  incapable  of  being  herself. 
She  sat  on  the  bench  beside  her  big  brother,  holding  his 
hand,  talking  affectedly,  with  an  artificial  vivacity,  in  as 
close  an  imitation  as  possible  of  her  elders.  The  man 
to  whom  she  chattered,  winced,  shrugged  his  shoulders, 
and  fell  into  a  morose  silence. 

But  Celia,  after  all,  was  only  eight  years  old,  and  at 
that  age  honest  human  nature  is  hard  to  stifle.  Over 
across  the  road  in  the  meadow  was  Jacques  with  his  new 
net,  hunting  butterflies.  And  .  .  .  she  stood  on  tiptoe 


ig8  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

to  see  .  .  .  yes,  he  seemed  to  have  caught  .  .  .  oh, 
could  it  be  that  blue  and  black  variety  they  hadn't  yet 
found  ?  She  darted  away,  ran  back,  caught  her  brother's 
hand:  "  Louis,  just  a  minute!  I  won't  be  gone  but  just 
a  moment !  "  she  cried,  and  was  off,  her  little  feet  patter 
ing  down  the  path  to  the  road. 

Why,  he  was  alone!  It  was  the  very  first  time  since 
...  he  did  not  finish  the  sentence,  shrinking  away  in 
terror  from  the  word,  now  that  there  was  no  need  for 
bravado. 

He  stood  up  wildly.  He  must  get  away  at  once,  to 
find  some  hidden  spot,  to  be  more  and  yet  more  alone. 
He  knew  that  from  the  house  they  could  not  see  the 
bench  .  .  .  oh,  he  knew  every  inch  of  the  ground 
around  the  house  from  having  played  all  over  it  from 
his  childhood.  He  knew  too  that  on  the  other  side  of 
the  hedge  there  was  an  open  field  with  a  big  clump  of 
chestnut-trees,  further  along,  opposite  the  hole  in  the 
hedge  where  you  could  scramble  through. 

He  started  down  the  path.  It  was  the  first  time  he 
had  taken  a  step  without  having  some  one  rush  to  lead 
him.  His  heart  beat  fast. 

He  followed  the  path,  feeling  his  way  with  his  cane. 
There  was  the  hole  in  the  hedge.  Somehow,  he  was 
through,  and  walking  on  sod,  soft,  soft,  under  his  feet; 
no,  something  round  and  hard  was  there.  He  fumbled, 
picked  it  up;  a  chestnut.  He  must  be  near  the  clump  of 
trees.  Alone  he  had  found  the  way ! 


THE  FIRST  TIME  AFTER  199 

He  turned  to  the  left.  In  the  old  days  there  was  a 
little  hollow  where  the  brook  ran,  a  little  hollow  all 
thickly  overgrown  with  ferns  just  large  enough  to  hide 
a  boy  who  was  playing  robbers.  If  he  could  only  find 
that  place  and  lie  down  in  the  ferns  again!  Scorning 
to  put  out  his  hands  to  grope,  he  stepped  forward  slowly 
into  the  black  infinity  about  him.  After  a  few  steps, 
something  brushed  lightly  against  his  hanging  hand.  He 
stooped  and  felt  in  his  fingers  the  lace-like  grace  of  a 
fern-stalk.  The  sensation  brought  back  to  him  with 
shocking  vividness  all  his  boyhood,  sun-flooded,  gone 
forever. 

He  flung  himself  down  in  the  midst  of  the  ferns,  the 
breaking-point  come  at  last,  beating  his  forehead  on  the 
ground.  ...  It  was  the  first  time  that  he  could  throw 
aside  the  racking  burden  of  his  stoicism.  At  last  he  was 
alone,  entirely  alone  in  the  abyss  where  henceforth  he 
was  to  pass  his  days  and  nights.  Dreadful  tears  ran 
down  from  his  blind  eyes  upon  the  ferns.  He  was  alone 
at  last,  he  could  weep.  At  last  this  was  not  rage,  this 
was  black,  black  sorrow. 

Now  they  were  shed,  the  tears,  the  great  scalding 
flood  of  them  had  fallen.  The  man  lay  on  his  face  in  the 
ferns  like  a  dead  body  on  a  battlefield,  broken,  drained 
dry  of  everything,  of  strength,  of  stoicism,  of  suffering, 
even  of  bitterness.  For  the  moment  there  was  nothing 
left  .  .  .  nothing  but  the  consciousness  of  being  alone, 
empty  and  alone  in  the  blackness. 


200  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

And  yet  was  he  alone,  quite  alone  ?  Something  in  the 
black  gulf  stirred  and  made  a  rustle  of  leaves  high  over 
his  head.  The  little  sound  came  clear  to  his  ears.  Then 
three  clear  whistling  notes  dropped  down  to  him,  a 
thrush  trying  his  voice  wistfully,  dreaming  of  the  summer 
past.  The  angel-pure  perfection  of  those  notes  sounded 
across  the  black  gulf  with  ineffable  radiance.  The  pros 
trate  man  at  the  foot  of  the  tree  heard  them  ringing 
out  in  the  echoing,  empty  rooms  of  his  heart.  They 
seemed  the  first  sounds  he  had  ever  heard,  the  presage 
of  something  new,  of  everything  new.  He  did  not  stir, 
but  he  held  his  breath  to  listen. 

The  bird  did  not  sing  again.  And  yet  there  was  no 
silence  as  he  had  thought.  Listening  for  the  bird's  note, 
he  heard  the  delicate  murmur  of  the  leaves,  light  arpeg 
gios  accompanying  the  singing  voice  of  the  little  brook, 
now  suddenly  quite  loud  in  his  ears.  He  felt  the  fern- 
stalks  stirring  against  his  cheek  and  divined  their  supple 
submission  to  the  wind.  The  chestnut  was  still  in  his 
hand,  unimaginably  smooth,  polished,  flawless.  The 
breeze  lifted  his  hair  in  a  movement  gentler  than  any 
thing  human  .  .  .  his  blackened  house  was  no  longer 
empty  of  all  things. 

Presently  his  young  body  wearied  of  immobility.  He 
found  himself  on  his  back,  stretched  out  on  the  good 
earth,  his  arms  crossed  under  his  head,  his  eyes  turned 
toward  the  sky  he  would  never  see  again.  His  muscles 
were  all  relaxed  as  they  had  not  been  for  months,  every 
taut  nerve  was  loosened.  The  wind  blew  softly  among 


THE  FIRST  TIME  AFTER  201 

the  leaves,  across  his  forehead.  On  a  sudden  caprice, 
the  thrush  again  sent  down  its  three  perfect  notes,  like 
an  enchanted  flute.  .  .  . 

They  ushered  him  into  the  moment  he  had  inexpressi 
bly  longed  for,  inexpressibly  feared,  the  moment  when 
he  must  stop  hating  and  raging,  must  stop  pretending  to 
be  hard,  when  he  must  at  last  be  honest  with  himself, 
must  face  what  there  was  to  face,  must  say  out  the  word 
he  had  never  dared  to  say  in  his  heart,  although  his 
proud  lips  had  brought  it  out  so  many  times,  when  he 
must  announce  to  his  terrified  heart :  "  I  am  a  blind  man. 
What  does  it  mean  to  be  blind?  " 

Above  his  body,  infinitely  tired,  infinitely  reposed  by 
his  paroxysm  of  sorrow,  his  mind  soared,  imperious, 
eagle-like,  searching.  What  was  the  meaning  of  it  ?  He 
looked  squarely  at  it  like  a  brave  man,  and  knew  that 
he  had  the  courage  to  look  at  it.  With  an  effort  of  all 
his  being,  he  began  to  think;  with  all  his  force,  with  all 
his  will,  with  all  his  energy,  to  think.  With  the  action 
he  felt  a  stirring  of  life  in  all  those  empty  chambers  of 
his  being. 

The  moments  passed.  The  thrush  sang  once,  stirred 
in  the  trees,  flew  to  another,  sang  again,  and  was  not 
heard.  The  blind  eyes  staring  up  at  the  sky  saw  nothing 
material,  and  yet  began  to  see.  A  dim  ray  glowed  in  the 
blackness. 

After  a  time  he  said  hurriedly  to  himself,  nervously 
anxious  lest  he  should  let  the  clue  out  of  his  hand :  "  Our 


202  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

senses  ar6  not  ourselves;  we  are  not  our  senses.  No; 
they  are  the  instruments  of  our  understanding.  To  be 
blind  means  that  I  have  one  less  instrument  than  other 
men.  But  a  man  with  a  telescope  has  one  more  than 
other  men,  and  is  life  worthless  to  them  because  of 
that?" 

He  paused  breathless  with  the  effort  of  the  first  thought 
of  his  own  since,  since  ..."  And  our  senses,  even 
the  best  of  them  are  like  an  earthworm's  vague  intuitions 
beside  scientific  instruments,  a  thermometer,  a  micro 
scope,  a  photographic  plate.  And  yet  with  what  they 
give  us,  poor,  imperfect  as  it  is,  we  make  our  life,  we 
make  our  life." 

He  took  one  more  poor  stumbling  step  along  the  path 
he  divined  open  to  him :  "  A  man  with  understanding, 
without  a  telescope,  without  a  microscope  can  see  more 
than  a  fool  with  both  instruments."  Aloud  he  said 
gravely,  as  though  it  were  a  statement  of  great  value : 
"  The  use  one  makes  of  what  one  has,  that  is  the  formula. 
That  is  my  formula." 

There  was  a  pause,  for  him  luminous.  He  told  him 
self  quietly,  without  despair :  "  And  as  for  understanding, 
for  really  seeing  what  is,  aren't  we  all  groping  our  way 
in  the  dark?  Am  I  blinder  than  before?"  It  seemed 
to  him  that  something  within  him  righted  itself,  balanced, 
poised.  His  sickness  left  him.  He  knew  an  instant's 
certainty  ...  of  what?  Of  himself?  Of  life?  If 
so  it  was  the  first  he  had  ever  known  in  all  his  life. 
Strange  that  it  should  come  now,  when.  .  .  . 


THE  FIRST  TIME  AFTER  203 

Then  all  this  fell  away  from  him.  He  thought  no 
more.  He  lay  on  the  earth  now,  not  like  a  dead  man  on 
a  battlefield,  but  like  a  child  on  its  mother's  knees.  He 
felt  the  earth  take  him  in  her  arms,  and  he  closed  his 
eyes,  abandoning  himself  to  her  embrace. 

The  sound  of  distant  voices  roused  him  from  his 
dreaming  doze.  He  turned  on  his  elbow  to  listen.  The 
old  aunt,  the  old  cousin  were  talking  together :  "  Oh,  the 
naughty  little  girl,  off  there  in  the  meadow  chasing  but 
terflies  !  How  heartless  children  are !  To  leave  her  poor 
brother  all  alone,  when  he  needs  so  to  be  cheered!  " 

The  blind  man  lying  in  the  ferns  broke  out  into  a 
laugh,  a  ringing  young  laugh,  without  irony,  without 
bitterness. 

It  was  the  first  time  he  had  laughed  since  .  .  .  since 
his  blindness. 


HATS 

MY  attention  was  first  attracted  to  him  by  the  ring 
of  his  voice  as  he  answered  the  question  a  woman  near 
me  put  to  him,  amiably  trying  to  start  a  conversation: 
"  And  may  I  ask,  Mr.  Williams,  what  are  you  in  France 
for,  Red  Cross,  or  Y.M.CA.,  or  perhaps  reconstruction 
work?  I'm  refugees,  myself.  It's  always  interesting  to 
know  other  people's  specialties.  You  often  have  so  much 
in  common.  The  only  branches  I  don't  know  anything 
about  are  orphans  and  the  blind." 

To  this  the  distinguished-looking,  gray-haired  man  re 
sponded  gravely,  "  Madame,  I  am  in  France  for  hats." 

"Hats!"  exclaimed  the  war-worker. 

"  Hats/'  he  reaffirmed  quietly. 

She  looked  at  him  wildly  and  moved  to  another  part 
of  the  room  towards  a  recognizably  tagged  young  woman 
in  a  gray  uniform. 

The  timbre  of  his  voice  struck  curiously  on  my  ear. 
I  cannot  express  its  quality  other  than  to  say  it  made 
the  voices  of  the  rest  of  us  sound  like  those  of  college 
professors  and  school-teachers;  and  I  don't  pretend  to 
know  exactly  what  I  mean  by  that. 

He  aroused  my  curiosity.  I  wanted  to  investigate, 
so  I  began  looking  vague,  letting  my  eyes  wander,  and 
answering  at  random.  Presently  the  earnest  talker  hold- 

204 


HATS  205 

ing  forth  to  me  grew  indignant  at  my  lack  of  attention, 
broke  off  abruptly,  and  went  away.  I  turned  to  the  man 
with  the  different  voice  and  asked,  "  What  in  the  world 
makes  you  come  to  France  for  hats,  just  now  in  the  midst 
of  the  war?" 

He  answered  with  instant  decision,  "  Because  the 
only  hats  worth  buying  are  made  in  Paris." 

"Now?  with  France  bleeding  to  death,  how  can  they 
make  hats,  invent  new  fashions !  " 

His  eye  kindled.  "  Madame,  a  good  French  modiste 
on  her  deathbed  could  make  a  better  hat  than  any  one 
in  New  York  ever  could." 

I  pondered  this.  His  accent  was  indubitably  Ameri 
can,  not  to  say  New  York.  But  there  are  cases  of 
French  people  who  have  spent  part  of  their  childhood  in 
the  States  who  speak  perfectly.  "  You  must  be  at  least 
partly  of  French  extraction  to  be  able  so  to  understand 
and  admire  France,"  I  ventured. 

He  opposed  a  rather  startled  and  very  emphatic  nega 
tive.  "  Me  ?  Not  much !  I'm  as  American  as  they 
make  'em.  Born  on  lower  Broadway  and  brought  up  in 
the  New  York  public  schools.  I  don't  know  anything 
about  France,  except  that  we  have  to  come  here  to  get 
the  right  styles  in  hats.  I  don't  even  speak  any  French 
except  to  say  f  combien '  and  enough  to  count." 

I  was  put  off  the  scent  entirely.  "  Oh,  I  thought  from 
the  way  you  spoke  that  you  knew  France  well.  This  is 
your  first  visit,  then?" 

He  was  silent  a  moment,  making  a  mental  calculation. 


206  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

Then  he  said :  "  This  is  my  fifty-first  visit  to  Paris.  I 
have  come  twice  a  year  for  a  little  more  than  twenty-five 
years." 

"  Always  for  hats  ?  "  I  queried,  my  imagination  reeling 
at  this  vista. 

"  Always  for  hats,"  he  said  seriously. 

I  tried  to  be  facetious.  "  Dear  me !  You  must  know 
all  there  is  to  know  about  hats." 

He  shook  his  head.  "  Nobody  knows  anything  about 
hats."  He  added,  very  much  in  earnest,  "  Style  is  one 
of  the  great  obscure  mysteries  of  life." 

This  had  always  been  one  of  my  observations,  but 
one  I  have  petulantly  and  impatiently  deplored.  I  had 
never  thought  to  hear  it  expressed  with  such  heartfelt 
gravity  and  weight  by  a  man  of  such  evident  vigor  of 
personality. 

I  said,  laughing  uneasily,  "  It  makes  one  very  self- 
conscious  about  one's  own  hat,  to  know  oneself  in  the 
presence  of  such  a  connoisseur." 

He  reassured  me :  "  Oh,  I  never  look  at  hats  except  in 
the  way  of  business."  In  his  turn  he  looked  vague,  and 
let  his  eyes  wander,  evidently  much  bored  with  my  re 
marks.  In  another  moment  he  would  have  turned  away, 
but  just  then  an  acquaintance  came  up  to  me,  addressing 
me  by  name,  and  my  new  interlocutor  broke  in  with 
a  quite  human  eagerness,  "  Oh,  are  you  Mr.  John  P. 
Hulme's  niece?  " 

"  Why,  do  you  know  my  Uncle  John  ?  "  I  cried  aston 
ished. 


HATS  207 

"  He's  one  of  the  best  business  friends  I  have,"  he  as 
sured  me,  "  and  I  have  often  seen  the  picture  of  you  and 
the  children  he  has  on  his  desk.  You  must  let  me  go 
to  see  them.  I've  got  grown-up  children  of  my  own.  It 
will  be  a  real  treat  to  me  to  know  some  American  chil 
dren  here." 

In  this  casual  manner,  slipping  in  on  the  good  graces 
of  my  little  son  and  daughter,  I  entered  a  world  the  very 
existence  of  which  I  had  never  suspected,  long  and  fre 
quent  as  had  been  my  sojourns  in  Paris;  the  world  of  hat- 
buyers.  And  I  had  for  guide  the  very  dean  and  master 
of  the  guild,  to  whom  the  younger  aspirants  looked  up, 
whose  sure,  trained  instinct  was  their  despair  and  in 
spiration. 

It  was  perhaps  his  influence,  dominating  that  circle, 
which  made  them  all  so  serious  and  intent  on  mastering 
their  profession,  so  respectful  of  their  chosen  occupation, 
so  willing  to  give  it  the  very  best  of  their  judgment  and 
taste.  This  was  the  more  remarkable  as,  with  the  ex 
ception  of  my  new  friend,  they  were  quite  the  opposite 
of  serious-minded  men  and  women,  and,  in  the  intervals 
of  the  exercise  of  their  profession,  enjoyed  rather  more 
than  was  good  for  their  health,  morals,  and  pocketbooks, 
the  multiple  occasions  offered  by  a  great  city  to  damage 
those  possessions.  I  was  not  at  all  in  sympathy  with 
what  seemed  to  me  the  indifference  of  their  relaxations 
in  a  country  so  stricken  as  France;  but  I  could  not  with 
hold  my  astonished  admiration  for  the  excellent  serious 
ness  with  which  they  approached  their  business.  I  would 


208  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

have  blushed  to  disclose  to  them  the  light  shallow  femin 
ity  of  my  careless,  rather  slighting  attitude  towards  "  la 
mode."  Also  I  was  amazed  at  the  prodigious  financial 
importance  of  their  operations.  The  sums  which,  with 
out  a  blink,  they  paid  out  for  hats,  and  the  number  of 
hats  they  thus  secured  and  the  further  sums  which  they 
looked  forward  to  paying  into  the  coffers  of  the  United 
States  Customs,  sounded  to  me  as  unbelievable  as  those 
nightmare  calculations  as  to  the  distance  of  the  stars 
from  the  earth  or  how  much  it  has  cost  to  build  the 
Panama  Canal. 

"  All  that  for  hats! "  I  cried,  "  and  every  year,  twice 
a  year !  " 

"  Oh,  this  is  only  the  smallest  part  of  what  goes  into 
hats,"  the  expert  assured  me.  "  What  I'm  buying  now 
are  only  single  models,  you  understand;  the  successful 
ones,  the  well-chosen  ones,  will  be  copied  by  the  hundred 
dozen  in  the  States  and  in  Canada.  That  chenille  toque 
you  saw  me  buy  the  other  day  ..." 

"  That  little,  plain,  ugly  scrap  of  a  thing  you  paid  a 
hundred  dollars  for?"  I  asked,  giddy  again  with  the 
remembered  shock  of  that  price. 

'  Yes.  Well,  probably  that  will  be  very  widely  copied, 
at  first  in  New  York  and  then  everywhere.  It's  a  fair 
guess  to  say,  that  being  a  model  that's  sure  to  be  popular, 
there  will  be  at  least  twenty  thousand  toques  like  it 
sold  in  different  places  in  the  States  for  five  dollars 
apiece." 

I  was  staggered.     "  A  hundred  thousand  dollars  spent 


HATS 

in  one  season,  just  for  one  out  of  all  the  different  models 
of  women's  hats!"  My  old  superficial  scorn  for  "the 
style  "  disappeared  in  an  alarmed  dismay  at  its  unsus 
pected  scope.  "Why,  that's  terrible!  It's  appalling! 
When  there  isn't  enough  money  to  make  the  schools  what 
they  ought  to  be,  nor  to  take  care  of  the  sick,  nor  to  keep 
up  the  .  .  ." 

He  showed  an  unexpected  humanity.  '*  Yes,  it  is  aw 
ful,"  he  agreed  gravely — "  very,  very  awful.  And  still 
more  awful  is  the  way  we  live  right  along  beside  such  an 
awful  force  and  never  have  the  slightest  idea  that  it 
rules  our  lives  and  not  what  we  wish  or  decide." 

For  all  my  consternation  I  found  this  excessive.  "  Oh, 
come,  it's  not  so  bad  as  that! "  I  cried. 

"  Yes,  it  is,"  he  assured  me  with  his  formidable  quiet 
certainty.  '*  Yes,  it  is.  It  goes  beyond  anything  we  can 
imagine.  It's  the  greatest  force  in  the  world,  this  desire, 
this  absolute  necessity  to  be  in  the  style.  Nothing  else 
can  stand  up  against  it  for  a  moment,  not  hunger,  not 
fear,  not  love,  not  religion.  They  only  exist  so  far  as 
they  don't  get  in  the  way  of  being  in  the  style.  The 
minute  they  interfere  with  that,  over  they  go  like  a  pack 
of  cards  in  a  tornado!  What  do  you  think  a  man  is 
doing  when  he  works  all  his  life  for  his  family?  Is  he 
earning  their  livings?  Not  much.  He's  enabling  them 
to  keep  in  style,  and  if  he  doesn't  he  is  a  failure.  What 
do  you  really  want  for  your  children?  That  they  may 
grow  up  to  develop  all  the  best  they  have  in  them  .  .  . 
yes,  if  that  doesn't  prevent  their  being  in  style." 


210  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

I  found  all  this  so  outrageous  that  I  could  only  stare 
a  silent  protest. 

"  I  don't  mean  just  my  small  part  of  it,  hats/'  he  ex 
plained,  "  although  hats  are  always,  so  to  speak,  the  crest 
of  the  tidal  wave.  It's  everything.  Style  rules  every 
thing.  Of  course  all  material  things,  furniture,  clothes, 
the  way  houses  are  built  and  gardens  laid  out  and  parks 
made  and  pictures  painted.  Everybody  can  see  with  his 
own  eyes  how  they  are  all  determined  by  whatever  the 
style  happens  to  be  in  that  century  or  year,  and  not  by 
anything  we  want  or  need.  But  more  than  that,  too. 
Everything  goes  together.  We  talk  and  eat  and  act  ac 
cording  to  the  kind  of  furniture  we  have;  for  instance, 
when  rough-hewn  Morris  furniture  was  the  rage  and 
we  all  had  to  have  it  or  dry  up  and  blow  away  with  envy, 
don't  you  remember  how  the  athletic  blowsy  styles  in 
clothes  and  manners  came  in  too,  and  it  was  all  the  thing 
to  go  to  a  funeral  in  a  striped  shirt  and  yellow  shoes  and 
the  girls'  shirtwaists  bloused  over  in  front  as  though  they 
had  forgotten  to  tuck  them  in,  and  how  bulging  pompa 
dours  straggled  down  in  every  woman's  eyes  ?  " 

"  Do  you  mean,"  I  was  ready  to  laugh  at  him,  "  that 
you  think  that  our  Morris  furniture  influenced  us  so 
deeply  as  all  that?  Even  Morris  would  be  surprised  to 
hear  so  much  claimed  for  it." 

He  was  scornful  of  my  incapacity  to  grasp  the  scope 
of  his  idea.  "  No,  Lord  no !  The  Morris  furniture 
hadn't  anything  more  to  do  with  it  than  a  tree  bent 
double  with  the  storm  has  to  do  with  making  the  wind 


HATS  211 

blow.  I  mean  that  the  same  thing  that  made  us  mort 
gage  our  souls  to  have  Morris  furniture  just  then,  made 
us  also  talk  slang  and  wear  yellow  shoes  to  funerals." 

"  Well,  what  did  make  us?  "  I  challenged  him. 

He  answered  monosyllabically,  solemnly,  with  his  re 
doubtable,  arresting  conviction,  "  The  style  did." 

We  were  both  silent  a  moment  as  if  in  the  presence  of 
Niagara  or  the  ocean. 

Then  I  said,  in  a  feebler  challenge,  "  Well,  what  is 
'  the  style  '  ?  " 

He  professed  the  admirable  ignorance  of  a  wise  man 
in  the  face  of  mystery. 

"  I  wish  I  knew.  It  looks  to  me  like  a  big  current  that 
takes  in  everything,  that  is  so  big  we  don't  know  it's 
there,  just  the  way  people  didn't  use  to  know  the  world 
was  round,  because  it  is  too  big  to  see.  And  it  carries 
us  along  like  dry  leaves  and  where  it's  going  to,  nobody 
knows.  We  know  just  as  much  about  it,  as  we  do  about 
where  water  runs  underground;  which  is  to  say,  nothing. 
But  when  it  comes  to  that  part  of  style  that  makes  hats 
and  dresses,  there  are  a  few  people  who  can  hold  a 
hazel-rod  and  have  it  point  downwards,  and  they  are 
oftener  right  than  the  rest  of  us.  And  every  one  of 
those  few  is  French  and  lives  in  Paris.  Don't  ask  me 
why!  That's  the  way  it  is.  And  it  would  be  enough 
sight  more  convenient  for  me,  let  me  tell  you,  if  it  were 
otherwise." 

I  understood  this  exclamation,  having  learned  by  this 
time  how  great  an  affliction  to  Mr.  Williams  personally 


2ia  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

were  these  semi-annual  trips  to  France.  He  knew  noth 
ing  of  Paris  outside  of  the  great  modistes'  shops,  and  he 
cared  less.  Since  he  knew  no  French  the  theaters  were 
closed  to  him.  Since  he  was  mildly  musical  (he  played 
the  violin  a  little)  concerts  helped  a  little  to  allay  his 
ennui ;  but  only  a  little.  Being  a  family  man  of  very  do 
mestic  tastes,  he  took  slight  part  in  the  very  cheerful 
proceedings  with  which  the  other  buyers  whiled  away 
the  hours  between  business  operations,  and  although  he 
was  invited  to  their  gay  suppers  in  expensive  restaurants, 
he  struck  an  austere  note  there,  drinking  only  water,  not 
smoking,  and  eating  sparingly  of  simple  dishes,  quite 
evidently  counting  the  hours  till  he  could  get  back  to 
America  and  to  his  garden  in  Westchester  County. 

In  spite  of  this  lack  of  appreciation  of  what  was  of 
fered  him,  he  was  very  frequently  invited  to  the  nightly 
feasts  of  his  young  confreres,  and  they  hung  about  him 
eagerly  because  of  their  superstitious  reverence  for  what 
they  called  his  "  hunch/'  "  Whatever  Grandpa  says  is 
going  to  go,  goes,"  was  their  expressed  belief.  They  tried 
by  ingenious  devices  to  exploit  his  scent  for  the  style, 
to  be  within  earshot  when  he  was  making  selections,  to 
suborn  the  milliners  into  showing  them  the  models  he 
had  selected.  Such  crude,  outright  efforts  at  getting 
the  better  of  him  he  defeated  with  a  wary  dexterity, 
getting  up  and  leaving  a  shop  abruptly  if  one  of  his 
rivals  began  to  loiter  too  near  him,  and  letting  it  be 
known  that  he  would  buy  no  more  from  any  milliner 
who  reproduced  "  his "  models  for  one  of  the  other 


HATS  213 

American  buyers.  This  last  precaution  was  not  neces 
sary,  for  the  sense  of  professional  honor  and  jealousy  is 
not  keener  among  doctors  themselves  than  among  Paris 
fashion-makers,  nor  was  the  capacity  for  darkly  guarding 
secrets  more  developed  in  Renaissance  Italian  poisoners 
than  in  a  twentieth-century  modiste's  shop  on  the  Place 
Vendome.  Also  Mr.  Williams,  who  had  seen  a  whole 
generation  of  modistes  grow  up  and  disappear  into  old 
age,  enjoyed  the  very  high  esteem  of  those  quick-eyed, 
quick-fingered,  quick-witted  ladies  with  the  wonderful 
simple  coiffures  and  the  wonderful  simple  hats.  This  was 
not  solely  because  of  the  very  large  sums  of  money 
which  were  at  his  disposition  and  which  he  spent  with 
Napoleonic  decision  and  despatch.  They  respected  his 
competence  also.  "  There  is  one  who  can  appreciate  our 
work !  "  they  said  of  him.  "  He  always  picks  out  the 
best.  There  is  one  who  could  have  made  hats,  himself !  " 
A  characterization  which  the  American  would  have  re 
pudiated  with  energy  if  he  could  have  understood  a  word 
they  were  saying. 

But  although,  as  a  matter  of  business  acuteness,  he  re 
fused  to  allow  himself  to  be  exploited  in  small  ways  by 
his  young  competitors,  he  was  always  ready  to  expound 
his  philosophy  to  them  and  to  lay  down  the  general 
lines  along  which  they  might  develop  as  he  had.  Not 
infrequently  their  elaborate  dinners,  where  too  much  had 
been  eaten  and  drunk  by  the  elaborately  dressed  women 
and  smooth-shaven,  young-old  men,  ended  by  the  ques 
tion  flung  despairingly  at  Mr.  Williams'  impassive  re- 


214  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

spectability,  "  Grandpa,  how  the  dickens  do  you  do  it  ? 
Tell  us!" 

He  always  told  them,  at  length,  in  detail,  as  long  as 
they  would  listen,  although  they  never  understood  one 
word  of  what  he  said.  Hoping  to  catch  him  off  his 
guard  and  to  cull  some  valuable  short-cut  tip  to  success, 
they  lent  ears  as  attentive  as  their  somewhat  bemused 
condition  would  let  them,  as  long  as  their  patience  held 
out. 

"  The  trouble  with  most  of  you  young  people/'  he  was 
wont  to  say,  presenting  as  he  went  on  the  abhorrent 
spectacle  of  a  man  at  the  Cafe  Riche  taking  occasional 
sips  from  a  glass  of  water,  "  is  that  you  don't  realize 
that  you  are  up  against  a  big  thing,  the  biggest  thing 
there  is.  You  think  you  can  just  josh  along  somehow, 
pick  out  what  looks  good  to  you,  what  you  think  would 
be  pretty  for  your  best  girl  to  wear,  and  have  it  go. 
Nothing  like  that!  What  you  like,  what  you  think  is 
pretty,  hasn't  a  thing  to  do  with  what's  going  to  happen. 
What's  going  to  happen,  happens,  whether  anybody  likes 
it  or  not,  and  the  only  thing  for  us  to  do  is  to  keep  our 
ears  to  the  ground  hard  and  try  to  guess  three  or  four 
months  sooner  than  most  people.  Nobody  can  guess 
further  ahead  than  that  and  mighty  few  people  even  as 
far  as  that.  Most  people  don't  know  what  style  is  com 
ing  till  it  hits  them  in  the  eye.  Now,  to  make  a  good 
guess  you've  got  to  keep  your  eyes  open  to  everything, 
everything,  and  then  sort  of  gather  yourself  together 
listen,  hold  your  breath  and  listen,  as  if  you  were 


HATS  215 

eavesdropping  folks  who  were  trying  to  keep  a  secret 
from  you;  as  if  you  had  to  catch  a  very  faint  A  sounded 
way  off  that  you  could  tune  your  own  fiddle  to.  And 
you've  got  to  get  passive  all  over,  the  way  the  hypno- 
tizers  tell  you  to  do,  let  yourself  go,  don't  try  to  have 
any  ideas  of  your  own,  don't  try  to  swim  against  the 
current,  don't  try  to  hurry  things  up  by  swimming  faster 
than  the  current.  No  power  on  earth  can  hurry  that 
current,  nor  make  it  bring  anything  but  what  it's  going 
to  bring!  And  it's  up  to  us,  let  me  tell  you,  to  take 
what  it  does  bring!  I've  seen  lots  of  styles  that  no 
body  liked,  not  the  modistes  who  made  them,  not  the 
buyers  who  took  them  to  the  States,  not  the  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  American  women  who  paid  out  their  hus 
bands'  good  money  to  buy  them.  And  yet  those  styles 
had  just  as  big  a  vogue  and  lasted  just  as  long  as  any 
others,  and  the  buyers  who  tried  to  dodge  them  and 
who  chose  what  looked  prettier  to  them  got  everlast 
ingly  stung.  And  aren't  there  styles  that  everybody 
just  hates  to  see  disappear,  comfortable,  decent,  becoming 
styles?  But  do  they  stay  in,  just  because  we'd  like  to 
have  them?  You  know  they  don't. 

"  And  it's  no  use  trying  to  do  anything  on  your  own 
hook.  There  was  old  man  Blackmar,  head  of  the  Black- 
mar  and  Jennings  Ribbon  Company;  he  could  manufac 
ture  ribbons  to  beat  any  French  factory  going,  if  he  got 
the  designs  from  France.  Every  time  he  tried  to  have 
one  designed  by  a  perfectly  good  American  designer,  the 
ribbon  didn't  sell  It  didn't  look  so  very  different,  but 


216  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

it  wouldn't  sell.  You'd  have  thought  he'd  have  learned 
something  out  of  seeing  that  happen  every  time  he  tried 
it,  wouldn't  you?  But  he  never  did.  Why,  I  was  hon 
estly  sorry  for  him,  five  or  six  years  ago  when  all  of  a 
sudden  the  styles  went  dead  against  ribbons  or  any  other 
trimming  for  hats.  It  pretty  near  ruined  him,  coming 
after  the  modistes  had  been  piling  everything  they  could 
buy  on  top  of  their  hats.  But  he  didn't  know  enough  to 
take  his  medicine  without  making  a  face.  He  couldn't  get 
it  through  his  head  that  he  was  up  against  a  bigger  propo 
sition  than  he  was,  than  anybody  is.  He  came  to  me  and 
he  said :  '  Williams,  I'll  give  you  fifteen  thousand  dollars, 
cash,  in  your  hand,  if  you'll  steer  things  over  in  Paris  so's 
to  bring  hat-trimmings  back  into  style;  ribbons  of  course 
if  you  can,  but  if  not,  most  any  kind  of  trimmings.  I 
can  alter  our  machines  to  do  braids  and  such.  This 
craze  for  just  the  naked  hat-shapes  with  one  little  rag 
of  an  ornament,  I  tell  you,  it'll  send  me  into  the  bank 
ruptcy  court/ 

"  I  was  very  sorry  for  him  and  I  said  so,  and  I  said 
I'd  do  anything  to  help  him  out  except  try  to  slap  back 
the  Hudson  river  with  the  flat  of  my  hand.  He  said  he 
was  sick  of  hearing  me  always  get  off  that  same  old  guff, 
and  if  I  really  wanted  to,  I  could.  '  Why,  they  tell  me 
every  modiste  in  Paris  calls  you  "  uncle."  With  plenty 
of  money  you  could  get  on  the  right  side  of  them  and 
get  them  to  launch  trimmed  styles.' 

"  I  just  threw  up  my  hands  at  that.  I  saw  he  didn't 
Jcnow  any  more  about  the  innerds  of  his  business  than  a 


HATS  217 

babe  unborn.  I  said  to  him :  '  Why,  old  man,  you  don't 
suppose  for  a  minute  that  the  modistes  in  Paris  invent 
the  styks,  make  'em  up  out  of  their  heads  ?  They  haven't 
got  any  more  to  say  about  what  it's  to  be  than  you  or 
me.  All  they  can  do  is  to  take  the  style  that's  going  to 
arrive  in  six  months,  and  put  it  into  silk  and  felt  and 
straw.  They  can't  have  it  the  way  they  want  it  any  more 
than  the  priestess  of  something-or-other  could  say  what 
she  wanted,  when  they  put  her  over  the  oracle-hole,  filled 
her  up  with  gas,  and  told  her  to  make  an  oracle.' 

"  Blackmar  was  sore  as  a  boil  at  me,  and  said  if  I 
wouldn't  do  it  he'd  give  the  job  to  Pierce.  Pierce  was 
buying  for  Condit  and  Vergary  in  those  days.  I  said 
he  could  throw  away  all  the  money  he  wanted  to,  but  / 
wouldn't  help  him  spill  it. 

"  Well,  Pierce  tried  to  swing  the  deal,  bucking  the 
universe  all  alone,  and  so  proud  to  have  the  chance 
to.  He  went  to  all  the  best  modistes  in  Paris  and  said 
he'd  give — well,  I'm  ashamed  to  tell  you  what  he  gave— 
if  they  would  make  him  models  all  trimmed  up,  heavy 
and  expensive  with  handsome  trimmings.  Of  course,  at 
first  they  said  they  couldn't  do  it,  the  hats  wouldn't 
be  in  style.  And  he  said  if  they  made  the  hats  that 
way  and  sent  them  out  with  their  names  in  gilt  letters 
in  the  lining,  they  would  be  in  style,  would  be  the  style. 
Didn't  everything  they  made  set  the  fashion?  They 
tried  to  explain  to  him  that  that  was  because  they  took 
the  greatest  pains  to  make  things  that  were  in  fashion, 
but  Lord !  he  couldn't  talk  their  language.  He  just  kept 


2i8  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

on  insisting  and  holding  out  those  banknotes,  and  by  and 
by  they  said,  well,  to  get  rid  of  him  they  would.  And  he 
came  to  my  hotel  and  bragged  all  over  me  like  a  man 
who's  cornered  the  wheat-market. 

"  They  did  make  him  trimmed  models :  and  as  they 
were  the  best  modistes  in  the  world  they  were  as  pretty 
hats  as  ever  you  saw.  They  were  all  trimmed  up  as  per 
agreement  with  ribbons  that  would  make  a  dead  woman 
sit  up  and  reach  out  her  hand.  Pierce  took  me  into  his 
office  before  they  were  packed,  to  show  them  to  me,  and 
he  said,  '  Now,  Grandpa,  what  you  got  to  say  ? '  And  I 
said,  '  You  let  me  know  four  months  from  now  how 
much  money  you've  made  on  them.' 

"  About  six  weeks  after  that,  back  in  New  York,  I 
went  into  his  office  and  there,  by  George,  were  all  but 
two  of  his  fifteen  models.  None  of  the  American  manu 
facturers  would  have  them,  not  at  any  price.  They'd 
send  their  head  milliner  to  see  them  and  she'd  say,  '  Oh, 
what  perfectly  lovely  ribbon/ — but  no,  thanks,  she  didn't 
want  to  buy  the  model,  because  they  wouldn't  sell.  They 
weren't  what  were  being  worn  that  season.  Pierce  said : 
'  Great  Scott !  look  at  the  labels.  They  come  from  all 
the  best  modistes  in  Paris ' ;  and  she'd  say  she  couldn't 
help  that;  if  they  weren't  what  was  being  worn  they 
wouldn't  sell.  And  before  three  months  were  up  he'd 
given  them  to  the  janitor's  little  girl  for  dolls'  clothes. 
There  you  are." 

There  were  evident  signs  of  inattention  from  his  au 
dience  by  this  time,  but  he  went  on :  "  And  young  Ham- 


HATS  219 

mond,  he  tried  to  tear  the  teeth  off  the  buzz-saw  with  his 
fingers,  too.  And  he  got  what  was  coming  to  him.  He 
had  a  great  idea,  regular  perpetual  motion  scheme  for 
economy,  of  how  he  could  beat  the  game  and  he  hypno 
tized  old  John  Harbine  into  standing  for  it.  It  was 
as  simple  as  bread  and  milk.  Hammond  would  take  up 
a  Paris  modiste,  somebody  on  a  back-street  somewhere, 
get  her  under  contract  to  be  '  Harbine's,'  and  Harbine's 
alone.  Then  they'd  put  her  name  in  the  hands  of  the  best 
advertising  agency  in  New  York  and  let  things  rip.  Well, 
they  started  out  as  though  they  were  going  to  a  fire. 
You  couldn't  see  the  spokes,  the  wheels  went  around  so 
fast.  The  advertising  people  delivered  the  goods,  put 
the  best  people  on  their  force  on  the  job.  I  remember 
they  had  one  collegergraduate  woman  that  could  write 
ads  that  would  inake  you  pay  five  dollars  for  a  straw 
berry  basket — once!  She  Wrote  up  their  great  find  in 
Paris,  wrote  it  up  like  a  magazine  short-story — modiste 
who  up  to  the  time  Hammond  had  spotted  her  had  been 
so  exclusive  you  couldn't  find  her  with  a  microscope,  had 
only  worked  for  the  pure-blood^  among  the  French  aris 
tocracy,  no  mere  Americans  had  ever  known  her  name 
(you  can  bet  your  life  they  hadn't)— <-you  can  imagine 
the  kind  of  patter,  the  sort  of  thing  women  suck  up  by 
the  barrel ful.  And  then,  owing  to  unheard-of  prices 
offered  by  Harbine's  out  of  that  disinterested  devotion 
to  American  womanhood  which  is  Harbine's  great  qual 
ity,  she  had  finally  consented  to  send  a  few  hats,  never 
more  than  a  dozen  a  season,  to  Harbine's,  where  the 


220  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

first  collection  would  be  on  exhibition  March  2ist,  and 
which  would  be  exactly  copied  to  order  in  imported  ma 
terials  with  all  the  inimitable  chic  of  the  original  models, 
for  such  low  prices  as  from  fifteen  dollars  up. 

"  It  was  well  done.  I'm  bound  to  admit  that  ad.- 
writer  got  just  the  right  esthetic,  superior  tone  into  it. 
And  as  for  Hammond,  he  ought  to  have  been  a  stage- 
manager.  He  got  some  of  the  people  back  of  me  sort 
of  worried.  They  came  to  me,  '  Look-y  here,  Grandpa, 
sure  you're  not  missing  a  point  in  the  game?  How 
about  this  Suzette  Rellot  person  ? ' 

"  I  said :  '  Her  real  name  is  Marie  Duval  and  she  used 
to  sew  in  linings  at  Reboux',  that's  who  she  is.  If  she 
could  have  trimmed  hats  you  can  bet  your  life  Reboux 
would  have  developed  her  years  ago.  Reboux  has 
candles  burning  in  every  church  in  Paris,  praying  Heaven 
to  send  her  apprentices  that  she  can  do  something  with ! 
And  if  she  can't  trim  hats  you  can  bet  your  life  old  man 
Harbine  is  going  to  lose  some  money,  a  lot  of  it  in  one 
clip,  and  he  and  Jimmy  Hammond  will  part  company 
with  a  bang.' 

"  Well,  I  was  over  here  in  Paris  when  their  great 
opening  came  off.  But  I  heard  about  it.  Nothing 
lacked.  They  all  but  served  free  champagne.  But  when 
I  went  back  only  a  month  later,  the  talk  was  already  go 
ing  around  among  folks  on  the  ins,  that  there  was  some 
thing  the  matter  with  the  Rellot  collection.  The  women 
weren't  just  crazy  about  the  hats  and  the  modistes 
wouldn't  look  at  them.  Later  on,  what  was  left  of  them 


HATS  221 

were  sent  down  to  South  America — Colombia,  I  think. 
Women  just  hatching  out  from  mantillas  will  stand  for 
anything  with  a  French  label  on  it!  And  that  summer 
Jimmy  Hammond  decided  he'd  go  in  for  life-insurance." 

When  he  had  talked  as  long  as  this  I  was  usually  the 
only  person  left  listening,  the  rest  having  yawned, 
turned  to  each  other,  or  melted  away.  But  I  listened, 
always,  open-mouthed  with  astonishment  and  wonder. 
Before  putting  on  my  hats  in  those  days  I  used  to  look 
at  them  hard,  with  respect,  almost  with  alarm,  feeling 
heavy  on  my  head  the  weight  of  their  unsuspected  sig 
nificance.  Wondering  what  the  great  expert's  opinion 
would  be  about  the  plain,  everyday  hats  of  ordinary 
women  I  asked  him  one  day :  "  Tell  me,  can  you  descend 
to  small  beer?  What  do  you  think  of  the  hats  you  see, 
not  in  those  wonderful,  silk-hung  studios,  but  those  you 
see  on  the  heads  of  the  women  in  the  streets,  on  mine? 
Is  this  hat  I  have  on  stylish?  I  warn  you  I  bought  it 
off  a  counter  for  less  than  four  dollars." 

He  answered  instantly,  without  giving  a  glance  at  my 
headgear:  "You  are  a  healthy,  normal  woman  and 
you're  wearing  it.  Of  course  it's  in  style.  If  it  weren't, 
and  you  had  to  wear  it,  you'd  be  sick  abed." 

"  You  exaggerate,  you  are  always  exaggerating,"  I 
protested.  *  You  only  know  women  who  care  about  the 
styles.  I  never  bother  my  head  about  my  hats!  I  just 
walk  into  almost  any  shop  and  buy  the  first  hat  that 
doesn't  make  me  look  too  queer." 

"  You  don't  have  to  bother  yourself  about  it,"  he  told 


222  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

me,  his  accent  tinged  with  weary  bitterness.  "  We  do 
the  bothering!  Months  beforehand.  An  army  of  us, 
able-bodied  men,  smart  women,  pretty  young  girls,  we 
all  of  us  give  up  our  lives  to  fixing  things  so  you  can 
walk  into  most  any  shop  and  pick  up  most  any  hat  and 
find  it  doesn't  make  you  look  too  '  queer/  which  is  your 
way  of  saying  that  it  doesn't  make  you  look  out  of  style." 

"  There  are  moments,"  I  told  him,  in  a  half-serious 
indignation,  "  when  I  find  you  too  absurd  for  words, 
the  victim  of  the  most  absurd  hallucinations!  All  this 
portentous  talk  about  the  world-wide  conspiracy  to  make 
people  keep  up  with  the  style.  As  if  the  style  had  any 
importance  for  sensible  people !  " 

"  If  you  knew  more  about  the  capital  and  brains  that 
are  invested  in  that  conspiracy,  you'd  take  it  seriously, 
all  right,"  he  assured  me  with  melancholy,  "  and  as  for 
not  taking  the  styles  seriously,  how  many  thousand  dol 
lars  would  it  take  to  pay  you  to  go  around  in  the  street 
one  day,  just  one  day,  in  the  big  bustle  your  mother 
used  to  be  ashamed  to  go  outdoors  without  ?  " 

I  lost  myself  in  horrified  contemplation  of  the  gro 
tesque  vision  he  had  conjured  up  and  forgot  to  refute 
him.  Perhaps  I  couldn't. 

Towards  the  end  of  his  stay  he  was  very  much 
troubled  by  persistent  rumors  that  the  boat  on  which 
he  was  to  sail  would  be  torpedoed  on  the  way  to  New 
York.  He  acknowledged,  with  the  fatigued  frankness 
of  his  sixty  years  past,  that  he  was  mortally  afraid  of 
the  passage  and  that  his  fear  would  deprive  him  of 


HATS  223 

sleep  all  the  way  over.  "  No  sane  man  likes  to  be  killed/' 
he  complained,  "  let  alone  be  blown  up  and  burned  to 
death  and  drowned  into  the  bargain !  I'm  a  family  man ! 
I  want  to  go  on  earning  a  living  for  my  wife  and  chil 
dren!" 

The  evening  before  he  went  away  he  was  so  fretful 
about  this  and  so  outspoken  about  his  dread,  that  I  asked 
him,  "  Why  don't  you  wait  over  a  boat  ?  " 

"  Oh,  what's  the  use  ?  One  boat's  as  likely  to  go 
down  as  another.  And,  anyhow,  I've  got  to  get  home. 
And  then  come  over  again  for  the  next  season,  curse  the 
luck!" 

I  thought  him  again  a  little  absurd.  "  Oh,  come,  the 
heavens  wouldn't  fall  if  you  missed  one  or  two  sea 
sons!" 

He  turned  grave,  and  after  a  moment's  hesitation, 
opened  a  door  which  I  had  thought  locked  and  nailed 
up,  and  showed  me  that  the  room  in  his  heart  which  I 
had  thought  was  certainly  empty  and  vacant  was  a  queer, 
dimly  lighted  little  chapel,  with  queer,  dim  little  candles 
burning  before  what  was  recognizably  an  ideal. 

"  Oh,  it's  no  time  for  anybody  to  lie  down  on  the 
job,"  he  said  offhand.  I  did  not  dream  that  he  was 
referring  to  the  war.  I  had  become  convinced  that  his 
curious,  specialized  world  held  no  place  for  the  horror 
and  apprehension  which  filled  the  lives  of  the  rest  of  us. 
Nor  had  I  ever  seen  him  give  any  signs  of  the  shocked 
pity  which  most  people  feel  at  the  sight  of  the  war- 
.maimed  men,  the  black-clad,  white-faced  war-orphans 


HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

and  the  widows  with  blurred  eyes.  I  had  thought  he 
saw  in  France,  only  and  uniquely,  hats.  So  I  asked  in 
genuine  ignorance  of  his  meaning :  "  How  do  you 
mean,  this  being  no  time  to  lie  down  on  the  job?  What 
job?" 

He  sat  back  in  his  chair  and  looked  at  the  ceiling; 
thereafter,  as  he  talked,  transferring  his  gaze  to  his 
finger-tips,  joined  with  nicety.  "  Well,  I  guess  I  mean 
something  about  like  this.  If  we  humans  are  to  get  on 
at  all,  get  any  further  away  from  having  tails  and  living 
in  trees,  we've  got  to  knock  down  the  partitions  and 
make  one  big  room  of  the  world,  the  same  way  each 
nation  is  one  big  room,  with  the  blacksmith  trading  his 
horseshoes  for  clothes  and  not  trying  to  be  a  tailor  him 
self.  Take  farmers.  Maybe  you  can't  remember,  but  / 
can,  when  old  farmers  in  Connecticut  raised  nearly  every 
single  thing  they  used  all  the  year  around,  and  were  proud 
of  being  such  idiots.  Nowadays  the  Connecticut  farmer 
don't  waste  his  time  trying  to  grow  corn  in  a  climate 
where  you're  liable  to  get  frosts  in  early  September; 
he  leaves  the  farmer  in  Iowa  to  do  that,  and  he  raises  the 
best  apples  in  the  world  and  with  the  money  he  makes 
that  way,  he  buys  him  oranges  that  a  Florida  farmer 
has  raised.  It's  my  opinion  that  we've  got  to  come  to 
that  on  a  big,  big  scale.  And  if  we  do  come  to  it  there 
won't  be  any  more  wars.  Now,  I  don't  know  anything 
about  anything  but  hats,  and  so  I  don't  try  to  have  an 
opinion  about  the  League  of  Nations,  nor  how  the  trick 
is  going  to  be  turned  by  the  statesmen — if  there  are  any 


HATS  225 

such — but  if  it  is  going  to  be  turned,  it's  going  to  take 
everybody's  shoulder  to  the  wheel,  you  can  be  sure.  And 
I've  got  a  shoulder.  What's  got  to  be  done  is  to  get  it 
through  everybody's  head  that  every  nation  ought  not  to 
learn  to  produce  anything  but  what  it  can  produce  best, 
and  that  self-defense  ought  not  to  force  it  to  make  a 
botch  of  trying  to  do  what  another  nation  could  do  bet 
ter.  Now,  one  of  the  things  that  France  can  produce 
better  than  other  people  (and  it  happens  to  be  the  thing 
that  I  know  about)  is  hats.  I  don't  know  whether  it's 
because  she's  been  at  the  business  of  running  the  styles 
so  long,  so  much  longer  than  anybody  else  so  that  she's 
got  all  her  fibers  settled  together,  just  right  to  catch  the 
note,  the  way  the  wood  in  an  old  violin  trembles  all  over 
at  sounds  that  leave  the  wood  in  the  leg  of  a  chair  per 
fectly  calm.  Mind,  I  don't  say  the  violin  is  any  more  im 
portant  than  a  chair.  As  far  as  I'm  concerned  person 
ally,  if  I  had  to  choose  I'd  rather  have  the  chair.  What 
I'm  trying  to  say  is  that  they  are  different.  And  we've 
got  to  get  used  to  the  idea  that  because  things  are  differ 
ent  it  doesn't  mean  one  is  better  titan  the  other  and  they 
ought  both  to  be  like  the  best  one.  Now,  maybe  it's  the 
other  way  around,  that  France  has  been  at  this  business 
of  setting  styles  so  long  because  she's  had  the  gift  to 
begin  with.  Anyhow,  what's  sure  is  that  they  do  it 
better,  everything  along  that  line,  ribbons,  braids,  straws, 
hats,  dresses,  furniture,  houses,  parks — original  designs 
don't  come  from  anywhere  but  France.  But  France  is  at 
war  and  pretty  nearly  gone  under.  She's  got  to  make 


226  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

her  designs  with  one  hand  and  fight  for  her  life  with 
the  other." 

He  paused.  "  Well,  I  don't  feel  just  like  picking  out 
that  time  to  stop  coming  to  France  to  get  her  designs 
and  to  do  my  part  to  keep  up  the  taste  for  them,  at 
home." 

I  found  no  sufficiently  admiring  comment  to  make  on 
this,  and  kept  a  respectful  silence. 

He  went  on,  rubbing  his  hand  back  and  forth  over  his 
gray  hair :  "  But  all  that  is  only  my  guess  at  it.  What's 
my  guess  worth?  Nothing.  But  it's  all  I've  got  to  go 
by,  and  so  I  do  go  by  it.  I  don't  know  anything  about 
anything  but  hats,  and  I  can't  but  just  make  a  guess  at 
them." 

He  folded  his  hands  before  him  and  sighed.  "  There 
is  a  lot  too  much  in  hats  for  any  one  man  to  under 
stand." 


A  HONEYMOON  .   .   .  VIVE 
L'AMERIQUE! 

I  NEVER  knew  many  of  the  mere  facts  of  their  exist 
ence;  where  all  their  money  came  from,  nor  the  extraor 
dinary  romance  which  must  have  lain  back  of  them.  Nor 
did  I  care  to.  They  were  too  epic  a  pair  for  realism  to 
touch.  I  find  on  thinking  them  over  that  I  never  quite 
came  to  believe  in  their  actual  existence;  and  yet,  what 
ever  value  this  slight  sketch  of  them  may  have  will  be 
due  to  its  literal  truthfulness  to  fact. 

My  first  sight  of  them  was  on  a  very  cold  day  in  the 
second  year  of  the  war  when  they  suddenly  filled  with 
their  resplendent  presence  the  dreary  room  which  was 
known  as  my  "  office."  For  several  difficult  months, 
against  all  the  obstacles  which  made  up  everyday  life  in 
war-time  France,  I  had  been  laboring  to  organize  and 
get  into  shape  a  Braille  printing  establishment  which 
would  provide  books  for  those  most  tragic  of  war- 
victims,  the  blind.  Together  with  a  crew  of  devoted 
volunteers  I  had  tugged  at  the  task,  struggling  like  every 
body  else  in  France  with  a  universal  shortage  of  supplies, 
which  began  with  able-bodied  men  and  ran  down  to  tacks 
and  cheesecloth.  There  was  also  the  difficulty  of  getting 
the  "  Authorization  from  the  Government "  before  draw- 

227 


228  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

ing  your  breath;  but  unless  you  have  experienced  this 
potent  brake  on  enterprise,  there  is  no  use  trying  to  de 
scribe  it  to  you. 

And  yet,  somehow,  we  had  managed  to  get  along,  had 
added  to  our  two  plaque-making  machines  a  couple  of 
presses  (very  poor,  both  of  them),  had  scrambled  to 
gether  a  home-made  device  for  wetting  and  drying  the 
paper,  had  hunted  down  enough  men  to  run  the  ma 
chines,  had  trained  enough  proof-readers  and  assembled 
enough  voluntary  editors,  so  that  after  a  fashion  we 
were  really  printing.  The  magazine,  liberally  bedewed 
with  our  blood  and  sweat,  came  out  once  a  month;  and 
although  the  two  presses  broke  down  with  great  fre 
quency,  we  managed,  by  dint  of  incessant  repairing,  to 
keep  at  least  one  in  shape  to  do  tolerable  work.  We 
really  had  something  patched-up,  ungainly,  but  reason 
ably  valid  to  show  the  sightseers  who  came  through  on 
the  weekly  visiting  day,  when  all  the  rest  of  the  insti 
tution  was  open  to  visitors. 

I  took  my  two  Olympian  guests  for  the  usual  idle, 
visiting-day  couple.  I  went  the  rounds  with  them,  point 
ing  out  with  a  weary  satisfaction  our  various  makeshifts. 
When  I  found  that  they  listened  receptively,  I  indulged 
in  considerable  self-pity  over  our  difficulties,  past  and 
present.  On  their  part  they  asked  a  good  many  pointed 
questions  about  the  business  end  of  our  enterprise,  about 
the  financial  status  of  the  institution,  about  the  prob 
ability  of  permanence  for  the  venture.  They  came  back 
to  the  "  office "  with  me,  the  goddess  in  sables  taking 


A  HONEYMOON   .    .    .   VIVE  L'AMERIQUE!      229 

the  solitary  chair,  while  her  mate  sat  down  on  the  edge 
of  my  little  table,  stretching  out  before  him  legs  clad 
in  cloth  of  a  fineness  I  had  forgotten  could  exist.  Quite 
casually,  like  the  diamonds  and  pearls  of  the  fairy-tales, 
amazing  words  now  issued  from  their  lips.  "  See  here," 
said  he  of  the  broadcloth  overcoat,  "  this  is  no  way  to  do 
business.  You  can't  get  good  work  done  with  any  such 
junk  as  those  two  presses!  Why,  I  wouldn't  take  them 
as  a  gift,  not  for  old  iron !  And  turned  by  hand-power ! 
Isn't  that  Europe  for  you?  Why,  for  twenty-five  cents 
a  day  of  electric  current,  you  could  do  ten  times  the 
work  you  are  doing  now,  and  have  women  run  the 
presses!  Go  find  a  modern  electric  press  that  a  man 
can  look  at  and  not  think  he's  Benjamin  Franklin  come 
to  life  again,  and  let  us  know  how  much  it  costs." 

He  handed  me  his  card  as  he  spoke. 

The  goddess  quitted  my  rickety,  cane-bottomed  chair 
and  from  her  superb  height  dropped  down  on  me,  "  You 
know,  the  kind  that  opens  and  shuts  its  jaws  like  a 
whale;  perhaps  you've  seen  them  in  printing  establish 
ments  at  home."  She  tempered  her  assumption  of  my 
ignorance  by  a  smile  out  of  the  loveliest  eyes  imagin 
able  and  added :  "  My  father  was  a  printer  out  West. 
I  used  to  play  'round  in  his  shop.  That's  how  I  happen 
to  know." 

Gazing  up  at  her  fascinated,  I  noted  how  deep  the  little 
lines  of  kindliness  were  at  the  corners  of  her  smiling  gray 
eyes,  and  how,  beyond  the  usual  conventional  coating 
of  powder,  no  effort  had  been  made  to  hide  the  fact  that 


230  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

the  beautiful  face  was  not  in  its  first  youth.  The  conse 
quent  effect  of  honesty  and  good  faith  was  ineffable, 
and  had  its  perfect  counterpart  in  the  extraordinary  sim 
plicity  and  directness  of  her  gentle  manner.  She  drew 
her  regal  fur  up  around  her  long  neck  and  her  husband 
put  his  hat  back  on  his  thick  white  hair.  "  While  you're 
about  it,  you'd  better  get  those  two  plaque-making  ma 
chines  electrified,"  he  remarked.  "  Any  electrician  could 
do  it  for  you.  There's  no  sense  in  having  your  operators 
push  down  that  pedal  for  every  letter  they  make.  Man 
power  again !  Europe !  " 

I  realized  that  they  were  moving  towards  the  door  and 
shook  myself  out  of  my  entranced  silence.  "  But  you 
can't  buy  a  press  of  that  kind  in  Paris!"  I  called  after 
them,  all  the  bitterness  of  my  past  struggles  in  my  voice. 
"  You  can't  buy  anything  in  war-time  France.  There 
hasn't  been  a  press  or  anything  else  manufactured  in 
France  for  two  years !  Don't  you  know  that  all  the  fac 
tories  are  making  munitions  ?  " 

Mr.  Robert  J.  Hall — that  was  the  name  on  the  card 
• — came  back  to  me  and  said  earnestly :  "  Money  can't  do 
everything,  but  I  tell  you  that  it  can  buy  anything  buyable 
if  you've  got  enough  of  it.  Now  we'll  give  you  money 
enough  to  buy  that  press.  It's  up  to  you  to  find  it." 
From  the  doorway  his  wife  smiled  to  mitigate  his  in 
tense  seriousness  and  said  again,  "  It's  the  kind  that  opens 
and  shuts  its  jaws,  you  know."  The  door  swung  shut 
behind  them  to  a  last  call-to-arms,  "  Go  to  it !  "  from  Mr. 
Hall. 


A  HONEYMOON  .    .    .  VIVE  L'AMERIQUE!      231 

Five  minutes  later  a  proof-reader  coming  found  me 
still  standing,  staring  at  their  card. 

"  What's  the  matter?  "  she  asked. 

I  took  her  by  the  arm.  "  Look  here,"  I  said,  "  did  I 
just  show  two  visitors  around  the  place  ?  " 

"  Do  you  mean  that  awfully  good-looking  man  with 
the  white  hair  and  the  royal-princess-effect  in  sables  and 
eyes  like  Trilby's?" 

I  nodded,  reassured.    I  had  not  dreamed  them! 

Of  course  I  went  to  it.  Of  course  I  found  the  press. 
After  such  a  galvanic  shock,  I  could  have  found,  if  that 
had  been  my  need,  a  featherbed  on  the  Arc  de  1'Etoile.  I 
have  too  many  other  things  to  tell  you  about  the  Halls  to 
describe  the  hunt  after  the  press,  although  in  its  way  that 
was  epic,  too.  Enough  to  say  that  after  three  weeks 
of  impassioned  concentration  on  the  subject  during  which 
I  ate,  drank,  slept,  and  lived  printing-press,  it  was  lo 
cated,  a  second-hand  one  in  excellent  condition,  in  a  loft 
in  the  remotest  corner  of  a  remote  industrial  region  of 
Paris.  It  was  quite  exactly  what  we  needed,  a  thousand 
times  better  than  anything  we  had  dreamed  of  having. 
I  felt  almost  a  reverent  admiration  to  see  it  opening  and 
shutting  its  great  jaw,  and  spewing  out  perfect  raised- 
type  pages,  at  least  twelve  times  faster  than  our  wretched 
hand  press;  doing  in  one  day  the  work  of  two  weeks! 

But  the  price!  Like  all  war  prices  it  was  five  times 
what  it  was  worth  when  new.  I  hadn't  the  least  idea 
that  my  extraordinary  visitors  would  buy  it  for  us. 


'232  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

Why  in  the  world  should  they?  In  fact,  by  that  time  I 
had  gone  back  to  thinking  that  I  had  dreamed  them. 

However,  I  betook  myself  to  their  hotel,  into  their 
private  sitting-room,  bright  with  chintz  and  copper  and 
flowers.  I  found  Mrs.  Hall  without  her  hat  even  lovelier 
than  before,  a  little  gray  in  her  thick  soft  hair  as  hon 
estly  shown  as  the  faint,  fine  lines  of  simple  kindness 
in  her  clear  skin.  She  wore  a  dark-blue  satin  dress  richly 
embroidered,  evidently  a  creation  from  one  of  the  great 
Paris  houses.  She  assured  me  cordially  that  she  was 
awfully  glad  to  see  me. 

Sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  Beauvais  tapestry  chair  like 
the  poor  relation  on  a  begging  expedition  which  I  felt 
myself  to  be,  I  timidly  told  of  my  search,  trying  to  be 
amusing  about  it.  Now  that  I  was  there  I  dared  not 
mention  the  price.  Finally,  however,  having  run  out  of 
expedients  to  put  off  that  dangerous  moment,  I  brought 
out  haltingly  the  sum  needed,  and  began  to  say,  excus- 
ingly,  that  I  thought  I  might  get  part  of  that  from  .  .  ,: 

Mr.  Robert  J.  Hall  moved  to  the  writing-table  and 
took  out  a  check-book.  "  I'll  tack  another  thousand 
francs  on  to  that,"  he  said  over  his  shoulder  as  he 
wrote,  "  I  haven't  been  able  to  sleep  nights  for  thinking 
of  those  operators  punching  down  the  pedals  by  main 
strength  and  awkwardness." 

There  was  a  silence  as  he  wrote.  Mrs.  Robert 
J.  Hall  examined  her  glistening  nails,  looked  out 
of  the  window,  and,  with  a  tact  for  which  I  was  grate 
ful,  did  not  once  glance  at  my  face.  I  fancy  that 


A  HONEYMOON   .    .    .   VIVE  L'AMERIQUE!      233 

my  expression,  instead  of  gratitude,  must  have  been 
stupefaction.  Mr.  Hall  blotted  his  check,  detached  it, 
and  handed  it  to  me — the  little  bit  of  blue  paper  through 
which  I  saw  as  in  a  vision  hundreds  of  the  terribly 
needed  raised-type  books  put  into  those  terribly  empty 
hands.  I  could  find  no  words  at  all.  "  It's  .  .  .  it's 
just  like  a  miracle ! "  I  was  stammering,  when  some  one 
knocked  at  the  door,  a  timid,  hesitating  knock,  such  as 
mine  had  been. 

The  sound  seemed  to  alarm  the  Halls.  "  Good  Lord,  I 
bet  it's  the  abbe!"  said  Mr.  Hall. 

:<  You  don't  happen  to  speak  French,  do  you?  "  asked 
his  wife  hastily.  "  Oh,  you  do?  It's  all  right  then.  It's 
the  cure  of  a  town  in  the  war-zone  and  we  want  to  help 
him  with  some  war-orphans,  but  we  have  the  most  awful 
time  trying  to  make  him  understand  about  business  de 
tails.  It's  perfectly  terrible,  not  speaking  the  lan 
guages." 

We  turned  to  meet  a  short,  elderly,  double-chinned  ec 
clesiastic  who  carried  his  bulky  body  with  the  impersonal 
professional  dignity  of  his  calling,  but  was  not  other 
wise  in  the  least  impressive.  The  conversation  began. 

It  consisted  of  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Hall 
to  get  the  cure  to  "  come  to  the  point,"  as  he  expressed 
it,  and  name  a  sum,  and  of  terror-stricken  evasions  on 
the  part  of  the  cure  to  do  any  such  thing  for  fear  of 
losing  their  interest.  This  fencing  centered  about  a 
large  house  which  the  cure  needed  to  fit  up  for  the  re 
ception  of  a  number  of  war-orphans.  "  How  much  will 


234  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

it  cost?"  asked  Mr.  Hall  patiently,  over  and  over,  evi 
dently  seeing  no  reason  for  his  not  receiving  a  direct 
answer.  Upon  my  pressing  the  abbe  hard,  he  finally 
brought  out  the  sum,  miserably,  in  a  faltering  voice 
which  made  me  want  to  shake  his  hand.  I  knew  how 
he  felt. 

The  Halls  consulted  each  other  with  a  look  of  intimate 
understanding.  "  All  right,"  said  the  husband,  "  all 
right,  on  condition  that  he  can  get  the  funds  from  his 
diocese  to  keep  the  thing  going  if  we  set  it  on  foot.'* 
To  me,  he  added :  "  The  more  we  see  of  this  sort  of 
thing,  the  more  we  see  you've  got  to  go  slow  at  times. 
These  Europeans  are  so  impractical  that  first  thing  you 
know  they've  used  the  money  you  give  them  to  get  them 
selves  into  some  fool  scheme,  without  half  seeing  their 
way  through.  We  make  it  a  rule  not  to  give  anything  to 
a  concern  which  isn't  on  a  good,  sound,  business  basis. 
What's  the  use?" 

I  turned  to  the  waiting  priest,  who  had  been  wildly 
trying  to  guess  from  our  faces  what  we  were  saying, 
and  translated  Mr.  Hall's  philosophy  of  philanthropy. 
I  found  a  little  difficulty  in  hitting  on  the  exact  French 
phrase  to  express  "  a  good,  sound,  business  basis "  but 
evidently  I  made  myself  understood,  because  the  old 
man's  lips  began  to  tremble  eagerly.  "  Oh  yes,  yes, 
madame,  tell  them  that  I  can  bring  a  letter  to-morrow 
from  my  bishop  guaranteeing  the  support  ...  if  only 
the  house  can  be  secured  and  fitted  up/' 

Mr.  Hall  sent  back  through  me :  "  Well,  you  tell  him 


A  HONEYMOON  .    .    .  VIVE  L'AMERIQUE!      235 

that  the  minute  he  shows  me  that  letter  from  his  bishop, 
I'll  give  him  a  check  for  the  house,  and  some  over  for 
extras." 

I  translated  this  exactly  as  it  was  said. 

For  an  instant  the  cure  kept  a  solemn  silence,  his 
eyes  looking  through  us  and  beyond.  I  knew  what  he 
was  seeing,  a  big  sheltering  house  with  happy,  rescued 
children  playing  in  the  garden.  The  graceless,  stout  old 
man  looked  very  touching  to  me. 

Then  he  came  back  to  a  sense  of  the  inherent  probabili 
ties  of  things,  and  appealed  to  me  in  a  trembling  voice,  as 
to  one  who  at  least  spoke  his  language  and  to  this  degree 
was  more  of  the  real  world  than  these  amazing  strangers : 
"Are  you  sure  you  told  them  correctly?  It  is  such  a 
great  sum!  And  nobody  else  has  been  willing  to  ... 
Madame,  do  you  .  .  .  do  you  really  think  they  will  do 
it?" 

I  showed  him  the  check  still  in  my  hand.  '  They 
have  just  given  me  this  for  the  war-blind,"  I  said.  I 
found  my  own  voice  not  entirely  steady. 

Then  it  was  my  turn  to  look  out  of  the  window  while 
he  took  his  agitated  departure.  I  tried  not  to  listen, 
but  I  could  not  help  hearing  that  he  gave  them  his  bless 
ing.  I  wondered  how  he  managed  it,  being  but  half 
their  height. 

I  was  still  at  the  window  when  he  emerged  from  the 
hotel  entrance  into  the  open  square  below.  He  stood 
looking  up  and  down  wildly,  forgetting  to  put  his  broad- 
brimmed,  flat-crowned  hat  on  his  head  although  it  was 


236  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

raining.  Then,  as  though  at  random,  he  crossed  the  wet 
asphalt  and  vanished  down  a  side  street.  He  staggered 
a  little  as  he  walked.  I  knew  just  how  he  felt. 

When  I  turned  back  from  the  window,  the  Halls  asked, 
offhand  and  as  though  it  would  be  doing  them  a  favor, 
to  accompany  them  on  an  automobile  trip  out  to  the 
front,  near  St.  Quentin.  (I  had  been  trying  vainly  for 
three  months  to  get  a  sauf -conduit  which  would  let  me 
get  to  the  front.)  "We  want  to  take  some  money  out 
to  the  villages  the  Germans  blew  up  when  they  retreated 
last  month;  and  seeing  how  quick  we  got  the  cure  fixed 
up  with  somebody  to  talk  French,  we  thought  it  would 
be  nice  if  you  could  go  with  us."  This  from  Mrs.  Hall. 
Her  husband  continued,  as  if  in  explanation  of  a  slightly 
eccentric  taste :  "  You  see,  we  like  to  dodge  the  commit- 
tee-and-report  effect  in  war-relief.  It  takes  so  long  for 
these  big  shebangs  to  get  into  action,  don't  you  think? 

"  And  we  like  to  manage  so  that  the  spending  of  the 
money  we  give  isn't  in  the  hands  of  one  of  these  self- 
satisfied  young  women  in  uniform  who  know  all  about 
Elmira,  New  York,  but  do  they  about  the  Department 
of  the  Aisne  ?  It's  unscientific,  I  know,  but  in  such  cases 
as  these  people  who  have  been  cleaned  out  by  the  Ger 
mans,  we  like  to  put  the  money  right  in  the  fists  of  the 
people  who  need  it;  and  then  go  away  and  leave  them 
to  spend  it  the  way  they  want  to.  If  my  house  burned 
down,  I  don't  believe  I'd  enjoy  having  a  foreigner  tell 
me  how  to  build  it  over,  and  you  needn't  tell  me  they 
like  our  ideas  any  better." 


A  HONEYMOON  .    .    .  VIVE  L'AMERIQUE!      237 

I  was  by  this  time  in  the  state  of  silent  stupor  which 
was  the  effect  not  infrequently  produced  on  me  by  the 
Halls.  I  found  no  words  to  tell  them  how  precisely 
their  invitation  fell  in  with  my  wishes,  and  they  took 
my  momentary  hesitation  for  doubt.  "  We've  got  a  very 
comfortable  car,"  urged  Mrs.  Hall.  "  I  don't  think  it 
would  tire  you  much !  " 

And  Mr.  Hall  added :  "  Honestly,  it  would  make  me 
a  lot  more  satisfied  if  you  would.  You  haven't  any  idea 
what  a  fool  you  feel  just  to  poke  money  under  people's 
noses  and  not  be  able  to  say  anything  to  them !  " 

I  thought  to  myself  it  was  a  sort  of  "  foolishness  " 
which  I  could  well  endure,  but  before  I  could  put  this 
idea  into  words  we  were  deep  in  a  discussion  of  ways 
and  means,  what  clothes  to  wear,  whether  cameras  would 
be  permitted,  what  to  do  about  food.  The  date  for  the 
expedition  was  set.  My  call  was  over.  Dazed,  their 
check  still  clutched  tightly  in  my  hand,  I  was  emerging 
from  the  hotel  entrance  into  the  street.  I  think  I  must 
have  staggered  a  little  as  I  walked,  but  the  resplendent 
doorkeeper  did  not  seem  to  notice.  He  was  probably 
quite  used  to  this  phenomenon  as  a  feature  of  the  depar 
ture  of  visitors  to  the  Halls. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  tell  you  of  that  phantasmagoric 
trip  to  the  front,  the  nightmare  of  the  dynamited  vil 
lages,  the  carefully  and  expertly  murdered  fruit-trees  and 
vines,  the  ravaged  gardens  and  fields,  the  grimly  endur 
ing  women  and  old  men  who  toiled  feebly  with  an  in- 


238  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

vincible  determination  to  bring  a  beginning  of  order 
out  of  the  hideous  chaos  which  had  been  their  homes. 
For  me  the  recollection  of  all  that  horror  of  desolation  is 
shot  through  with  the  incredible  presence  of  the  Halls, 
resplendent  in  health  and  good  looks  and  wealth  and 
good  will,  brightly  interested  in  everything,  cut  off  by 
their  untouched  prosperity  from  any  grinding  compre 
hension  of  what  they  saw,  but  somehow  not  needing 
to  be  ground  into  comprehension  like  the  rest  of  us, 
somehow  not  needing  to  put  on  the  sackcloth  of  bitter 
ness  and  passion  in  order  to  feel  fellowship. 

They  kept  vaguely  reminding  me  of  something  .  .  . 
and  on  the  last  night  out  I  learned  what  it  was. 

Everywhere  the  gesture  was  the  same.  The  car  rolled 
into  a  new  set  of  ruins,  as  like  the  ones  we  had  just 
left  as  one  part  of  hell  must  be  like  another.  Mrs.  Hall 
always  began  at  once  to  take  photographs,  methodically 
noting  down  the  name  of  the  village  which  had  stood 
there.  Mr.  Hall  got  out  from  his  pocket  the  wallet 
containing  more  cash  that  I  had  ever  seen  together  in  my 
life,  and  I  went  off  with  the  French  officer  escorting  me 
to  find  the  mayor  of  the  ruined  town.  For  the  most 
part,  the  real  mayor  had  been  carried  off  by  the  Germans 
for  forced  labor,  and  we  found  some  substitute,  chosen 
by  the  remnant  of  the  citizens  left.  Usually  it  was  a 
white-haired  man,  once  it  was  a  woman,  lean,  energetic, 
stern,  who  had  lost  one  eye  through  the  explosion  of  a 
dynamite  petard.  Always  we  found  a  worker  at  his 
work  ...  ah,  the  noble  procession  of  valiant  old  men  we 


A  HONEYMOON  .    .    .  VIVE  L'AMERIQUE!      239 

saw  in  their  shirt-sleeves,  in  worn,  faded,  patched  over 
alls,  hammer  or  mason's  trowel  in  their  knotted  hands, 
sweating  and  toiling  among  the  ruins. 

The  same  thing  always  happened.  I  explained  the 
Halls'  mission.  The  mayor  opposed  to  my  account  the 
prompt  defense  of  a  total  incredulity.  Things  didn't 
happen  that  way,  he  always  explained  to  me,  as  we 
walked  towards  the  car,  he  wiping  his  hands  on  his  over 
alls.  He  told  me  that  nobody  gave  help  at  once,  that 
people  came  and  looked  and  exclaimed  and  said  how 
awful  and  said  they  would  write  articles,  and  others 
came  and  took  notes  and  said  they  would  report  to  a 
committee  in  Paris,  and  others  said  that  if  a  report  were 
written  by  the  mayor  and  viseed  by  the  sous-prefet  and 
signed  by  the  Depute  and  sent  through  the  Ministry  of 
the  Interior  ...  by  this  time  we  were  beside  the  car, 
where  the  mayor's  eyes  were  always  instantly  fascinated 
by  Mrs.  Hall's  tall  beauty. 

Mr.  Hall  shook  him  by  the  hand  and  left  in  it  big, 
crisp,  crackling  French  bank-notes,  at  which  the  old  man 
gazed  hypnotized,  while  I  tried  to  express  to  him  some 
thing  of  the  kindliness  in  the  hearts  of  the  two  shining 
messengers  from  another  world.  During  this  time  Mrs. 
Hall  always  took  our  photographs  again. 

Then  we  shook  hands  all  around.  The  mayor  tried 
convulsively  to  express  his  thanks,  and  failed.  The  auto 
mobile  moved  forward.  We  were  off  to  a  repetition  of 
the  scene. 

When  our  time-limit  was  up,  we  scurried  back  towards 


240  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

Paris  in  order  to  reach  the  city  before  the  hour  set  in 
our  sauf-conduits.  The  car  rushed  forward  over  the 
long,  level  road,  dimly  shining  in  the  starlight,  the  flank 
ing  poplars  shadowy,  the  cold,  pure  air  blowing  hard  in 
our  faces.  Mrs.  Hall  and  I  were  in  the  tonneau,  looking 
up  at  the  stars,  incredibly  steady  above  our  world  of 
meaningless  misery.  Then  it  was  that  I  learned  of  what 
they  had  reminded  me.  Mrs.  Hall  said  to  me,  evidently 
thinking  it  the  simplest  and  most  matter-of-fact  explana 
tion  of  their  being  in  France,  of  their  life  there,  "  You 
see,  we  haven't  been  married  so  very  long,  only  three 
months  ago.  And  we  were  awfully  happy  to  be  mar 
ried.  Of  course  all  newly  married  folks  are,  but  we  had 
special  reasons.  And  we  wanted  to  have  a  very  special 
kind  of  honeymoon,  the  nicest  kind  anybody  ever  had. 
It  seemed  silly  to  go  to  Florida,  or  to  the  Yellowstone, 
or  yachting,  or  to  Hawaii,  or  to  Japan  for  cherry- 
blossom  time,  or  any  of  the  things  you  usually  do.  We'd 
done  all  those  anyhow,  but  more  than  that,  when  you 
read  the  newspapers  about  the  war  and  think  that  our 
country  isn't  taking  any  part  in  it  you  don't  get  much 
good  out  of  cherry-blossoms  or  surf-riding,  do  you? 
We  wanted  to  do  what  would  give  us  the  very  best  time 
we  ever  had,  to  celebrate  our  being  married.  That's 
what  honeymoons  are  for,  of  course.  And  we  decided 
that  what  we  would  like  best,  seeing  that  our  Government 
isn't  doing  anything,  would  be  to  come  to  France  and 
help  out.  So  we  did." 

She  was  silent  for  a  moment,  while  I  slowly  took  in 


A  HONEYMOON  .    .    .  VIVE  L'AMERIQUE!      241 

the  significance  of  what  she  had  said.  Then  she  went 
on :  "  And  we  like  it  even  better  than  we  thought.  We 
are  happier  even  than  we  expected.  It  has  been  per 
fectly,  perfectly  lovely." 

Then  I  knew  of  what  they  had  reminded  me.  They 
had  reminded  me  of  America,  they  were  America  in 
carnate,  one  side  of  her,  the  dear,  tender-hearted,  un 
comprehending  America  which  did  not  need  to  under 
stand  the  dark  old  secrets  of  hate  and  misery  in  order  to 
stretch  out  her  generous  hand  and  ease  her  too  happy 
heart  by  the  making  of  many  gifts. 

Of  course,  such  an  extraordinary  phenomenon  did 
not  go  unheeded  by  the  sharp  eyes  of  the  elegant  and 
cosmopolitan  circle  in  Paris  war-relief  work.  That  cir 
cle  had  as  well  trained  a  predatory  capacity  for  emptying 
fat  pocketbooks  as  the  prettiest  girl  who  ever  sold  ten- 
cent  bouquets  for  five  dollars  at  a  church  fair.  It  was 
with  something  of  the  same  smiling  security  in  levying 
philanthropic  blackmail  that  they  began  to  close  in  on 
the  Halls.  I  heard  excited  talk  of  them  everywhere. 
Everybody's  mouth  watered  at  the  stories  of  their 
"  easiness  "  and  plots  to  entrap  them  were  laid  by  every 
cosmopolitan  mondaine  who  now  felt  about  her  own  pet 
"  war- work  "  the  same  competitive  pride  she  had  had 
(and  would  have  again  as  soon  as  the  new  fad  was  no 
longer  new)  for  her  collection  of  pet  dogs,  or  Egyptian 
rings. 

A  scouting  party  from  another  charitable  institution, 
one  of  the  very  "  chic  "  czwures,  nosing  around  our  in- 


242  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

stitution  to  make  sure  they  were  losing  no  points  in  the 
game,  stumbled  on  our  new  press  and  were  as  awestruck 
as  I  had  been  by  its  costliness  and  speed.  After  this,  all 
the  information  which  I  had  about  the  Halls,  scanty 
and  highly  improbable  as  you  will  see  it  to  have  been, 
was  repeatedly  pumped  from  me  by  one  past  mistress 
after  another  in  the  art  of  pumping. 

I  became  so  curious  as  to  what  the  reaction  of  the 
Halls  to  this  world  would  be,  and  as  to  what  this  world 
would  make  of  the  Halls,  that  one  afternoon  I  took  the 
time  off  to  go  to  one  of  those  horribly  dull  afternoon 
teas  in  which  fashionably  disposed  charitable  ladies  made 
up  for  the  absence  of  their  usual  pre-war  distractions. 
I  did  not  see  the  guests  of  honor  at  first,  and  stood  dis 
mally  taking  my  tea,  submerged  in  the  talk  customary  at 
such  affairs,  for  the  most  part  complaints  of  war  incon 
veniences  .  .  .  the  hardship  it  was  to  have  so  few  taxis 
in  Paris,  how  inconsiderate  the  Government  had  been 
to  forbid  cakes  and  candy  on  two  days  a  week,  how  the 
tailors  and  dressmakers  were  profiting  by  the  high  prices 
to  ask  preposterous  ones,  "  even  of  their  old  clients/' 
how  hard  it  was  to  get  coal  enough  to  have  a  fire  in  one's 
cabinet  de  toilette  ...  it  was  one  of  the  days  when  we 
had  heard  of  the  failure  of  a  great  French  offensive, 
and  of  the  terrible  shortage  of  hospital  supplies  at  the 
front !  My  tea  and  sandwiches  were  ashes  in  my  mouth ! 
Through  the  window  I  saw  a  one-armed  soldier  with 
his  head  in  bandages  hobbling  by  the  house,  and  I  found 
myself  bitterly  longing  for  a  bolt  from  heaven  to  descend 


A  HONEYMOON  .    .    .  VIVE  L'AMERIQUE!      243 

and  consume  the  whole  worthless  lot  of  us.  Then  I 
caught  sight  of  the  Halls. 

They  towered  above  the  crowd  and  above  the  very 
small  but  very  important  person  who  was  monopolizing 
them,  none  other  than  the  Duchesse  de  Sazarat-Begonine, 
who  was  obviously  engaged  in  opening  upon  them,  one 
after  another,  her  redoubtable  batteries  of  persuasion. 
Do  not  let  this  casual  mention  of  so  well  known  a  title 
lead  you  to  the  very  erroneous  idea  that  I  move  in  the 
aristocratic  society  which  she  adorns.  Nothing  could 
be  further  from  the  truth.  The  very  fact  that  I  know 
the  Duchesse  de  Sazarat-Begonine  is  a  startling  proof 
of  the  extent  to  which,  in  the  pursuit  of  her  war-relief 
work,  she  has  wandered  from  her  original  circle!  It 
shows,  as  nothing  else  could,  what  a  thorough  sport  she 
was  in  the  pursuit  of  her  new  game,  stopping  at  nothing, 
not  even  at  promiscuous  mingling  with  the  obscure.  She 
was,  if  you  will  allow  me  the  expression,  the  as  des  as 
of  the  fashionable  war-relief  world  in  Paris.  As  in  the 
case  of  Guynemer,  when  she  mounted  her  aerial  steed 
in  pursuit  of  big  cash  donations  to  her  ceuvre,  all  lesser 
lights  abandoned  hopes  for  theirs. 

She  had  so  many  different  weapons  in  her  arsenal  that 
she  was  irresistible;  her  chateau  full  of  the  memories  of 
those  distinguished  thieves,  intriguers,  and  murderers, 
the  illustrious  ancestors  of  her  husband;  her  far- 
renowned  collection  of  historic  snuffboxes,  her  wonder 
ful  Paris  house  with  its  rigorously  select  circle,  to  enter 
which  any  woman  there  would  have  given  her  ears; 


244  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

her  astonishing  and  beautiful  jewelry;  the  reputation  of 
having  been  in  her  youth  the  bonne  amie  of  one  of  the 
best-known  of  the  Bourbon  pretenders  (or  was  it  a  Na 
poleonic)  ...  ah,  when  the  Duchesse  started  out  to 
bring  down  a  wealthy  philanthropist  for  her  Home  for 
One-armed  and  Tubercular  Soldiers,  she  never  missed 
her  aim.  It  was  not  to  be  doubted  that  people  who  had 
succumbed  without  a  struggle  to  the  snuffy  old  parish 
priest  with  his  war-orphans,  would  put  up  no  resistance 
to  this  brilliant  onslaught. 

When  I  perceived  the  Halls  corraled  by  this  well- 
known  personage,  I  shamelessly  moved  closer  so  that  I 
could  overhear  what  was  being  said.  This  was  little 
enough  on  the  part  of  the  two  Halls.  Mrs.  Hall  smiled 
silently  down  on  her  short  and  majestic  interlocutor. 
Mr.  Hall's  strongly  marked  face  was  inscrutable.  How 
ever,  the  great  lady  was  quite  used  to  respectful  attention 
from  those  of  her  excompatriots  with  whom  she  deigned 
to  converse,  and  she  continued  to  talk  with  her  habitual 
certainty  of  herself.  At  the  moment  when  I  came  within 
earshot,  she  was  retailing  to  them  exactly  how  many 
hundreds  of  wounded  heroes  had  passed  through  "  her  " 
hands  to  their  eternal  benefit;  exactly  the  praises  the 
Minister  of  War  had  given  her  when  her  red  ribbon 
was  bestowed;  exactly  how  she  had  attacked  and  driven 
from  the  field  a  Spanish  lady  of  wealth  who  had  had 
the  presumption  also  to  attempt  to  aid  one-armed  and 
tubercular  soldiers;  how  imitators  had  tried  to  "steal" 
her  methods  of  outdoor  work  for  the  tubercular, 


A  HONEYMOON  .    .    .  VIVE  L'AMERIQUE !      245 

and  how  she  had  defeated  their  fell  purpose  by  allowing 
no  more  visitors  to  that  institution  without  a  card  from 
her  personally  .  .  . 

At  this  point  my  attention  was  called  away  by  an  ac 
quaintance  who  asked  me  in  a  whisper  if  those  people 
whom  the  Duchesse  had  so  ruthlessly  grabbed  were  really 
the  extravagantly  rich  and  queer  Americans  everybody 
was  talking  about,  attached  to  no  institution,  who  gave 
as  they  pleased,  dodging  recognition  and  decorations, 
mavericks  of  the  fashionable  war-relief  world,  breaking 
all  the  time-honored  traditions  of  that  society. 

When  I  could  resume  my  eavesdropping,  the  Du 
chesse  was  embarked  upon  her  snuffboxes,  graciously 
dropping  down  from  the  pinnacle  of  her  lofty  exclusive- 
ness  an  actual  invitation  to  the  two  nobodies  before  her 
to  call  on  her  and  see  that  world-famed  collection,  com 
prising  snuffboxes  used  by  the  Due  de  Talleyrand,  the 
Due  de  St.  Simon,  the  Marquis  de  la  Rochefoucauld.  .  .  . 

About  this  time  I  detected  an  inward  glow  in  Mr. 
Hall's  steady  eyes.  He  said  grimly,  "  I  don't  happen  to 
be  acquainted  with  any  of  those  gentlemen,  but  in  our 
country  snuff-taking  is  accounted  a  rather  low  form 
of  amusing  yourself/' 

The  Duchesse  was  brought  up  short,  not  in  the  least 
by  any  intimation  that  she  might  not  be  extracting  her 
usual  due  of  admiration,  but  by  a  great  desire  to  laugh 
at  the  unsophistication  of  the  barbarians.  For  my  part 
I  went  warm  all  over  with  cheerfulness,  and  stepped  for 
ward  to  present  my  cordial  greetings  to  the  Halls.  Mrs. 


246  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

Hall  soon  fell  back  a  step  or  two  with  me,  leaving  Mr. 
Hall  looking  down  severely  on  the  jewel-covered  woman 
before  him.  There  was  a  shade  of  anxiety  on  Mrs. 
Hall's  usually  clear  face.  "  You  don't  suppose,"  she 
murmured  to  me,  "  that  Robert  will  be  taken  in  by  that 
horrid,  common  old  woman  and  give  some  money  to 
her?  Men  are  so  blind,  even  the  best  of  them! " 

I  must  have  laughed  out  at  this,  for  the  Duchesse 
turned  and  came  towards  us,  carrying  off  Mrs.  Hall  the 
moment  thereafter,  with  her  wonderful  irresistible  as 
surance  of  conferring  a  distinction.  I  said  to  Mr.  Hall, 
moved  by  the  most  genuine  curiosity :  "  What  do  you 
think  of  the  celebrated  Duchesse  de  Sazarat-Begonine  ? 
You  know  she  is  accounted  perhaps  the  most  chic  of  all 
chic  Parisiennes.  Is  there  any  other  city  where  a  woman 
of  her  age  could  set  the  style  for  the  most  exclusive 
society?" 

Mr.  Hall  did  not  seem  interested  in  the  chic-ness  of 
the  great  lady.  He  was  silent  for  a  moment,  watching 
over  the  heads  of  the  crowd  his  wife  listening  to  the 
Duchesse,  her  kind  eyes  bent  attentively  downward. 
Then  he  said,  with  decision,  "  If  that  bragging  old  har 
ridan  gets  a  cent  out  of  my  wife,  I'll  .  .  .  I'll  spank 
Margaret." 

I  thought  then  that  my  cup  of  diverted  satisfaction 
was  quite  full;  but  it  ran  over  splashingly  when,  half 
an  hour  later,  separated  by  the  crowd  from  the  Halls,  I 
heard  the  Duchesse  near  me,  announcing  confidently  to 
a  friend :  "  Oh,  no  difficulty  whatever.  The  simplest 


A  HONEYMOON  .    .    .  VIVE  L'AMERIQUE !      247 

fish  who  ever  swallowed  down  the  bait  in  one 
gulp.  Hooked?  My  dear,  they  are  in  my  basket  al 
ready!" 

I  went  away  on  that,  full  of  threadbare  meditations 
on  the  little  child  who  had  been  the  only  one  to  see  that 
the  Emperor  had  really  nothing  on. 

Although,  after  this,  our  Braille  printing  establish 
ment  continued  to  benefit  by  casual  visits  from  the  Halls, 
visits  followed  usually  by  some  sound  suggestion  for 
improvement,  accompanied  by  a  check,  they  were  strictly 
Scriptural  as  regards  the  ignorance  of  the  right  hands 
of  the  doings  of  the  left,  and  I  had  little  idea  of  what 
were  their  occupations  in  other  directions.  Once  in  a 
while  they  carried  me  off  to  dinner  in  some  famous 
restaurant  where  otherwise  I  would  never  have  set  foot, 
and  where  my  war-tired  and  gloomy  spirits  received  a 
lesson  in  the  art  of  cheer.  There  was  in  those  delicate 
and  costly  repasts  a  sort  of  robust  confidence  in  the 
ultimate  Tightness  of  things  .  .  .  or  at  least  I  used  to 
have  this  fancy  to  explain  to  myself  the  renewed  courage 
which  came  to  me  after  such  evenings,  and  which  may 
have  been  simply  the  result  of  a  really  hearty  meal  after 
a  good  deal  of  penitential  and  meager  fare. 

I  needed  all  the  courage  and  calmness  I  could  extract 
from  any  source  during  those  days,  for  it  was  at  that 
time  that  my  old  school  friend,  Marguerite  Moysset, 
was  notified  that  her  husband  was  killed  in  a  skirmish 
on  the  Champagne  front.  Marguerite  had  already  lost, 


248  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

almost  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  her  only  child,  a  boy 
of  nineteen.  The  death  of  her  husband  left  her  des 
perately  poor  and  inexpressibly  alone.  She  had  not  wept 
for  her  boy's  death  nor  did  she  shed  a  tear  now  for  her 
husband  whom  she  had  almost  extravagantly  adored. 
She  shut  herself  up  in  a  white,  stern  horror  which  fright 
ened  us,  all  her  well-meaning  friends  who  hovered  about 
her  in  those  clumsy  ministrations  which  often  do  more 
harm  than  good  but  which  nevertheless  one  dares  not 
omit. 

Paradoxically  enough  it  was  the  much-dreaded  mov 
ing  out  of  the  old  apartment,  full  of  memories  of  the 
twenty  happy  years  passed  there,  and  the  moving  into 
the  two  little  rooms  on  the  fifth  floor  of  a  dingy  old  tene 
ment  house  in  a  poor  quarter  of  the  city,  which  did  more 
for  Marguerite  than  all  our  foolish  efforts.  At  least  it 
aroused  her  to  a  sort  of  shocked  and  horrified  life,  and 
carried  her  out  of  her  own  misery. 

Not  long  after  she  had  gone  there  to  live  I  found  her 
with  four,  pale-faced,  dirty  little  children  in  one  of  her 
two  rooms.  She  was  heating  water  on  her  charcoal 
stove.  "  I'm  going  to  give  them  a  bath,"  she  said  to  me, 
pronouncing  the  commonplace  words  with  a  strange  wild 
acceat  "  Do  you  know  they  have  never  had  a  bath,  all 
over  their  bodies,  in  their  lives  ?  "  I  stayed  to  help  her, 
wondering  at  the  curious  expression  on  her  face.  She 
was,  as  she  had  been  ever  since  the  blow  had  fallen, 
still  very  white,  but  now  that  pallor  was  like  white 
heat.  After  the  children  were  clean,  Marguerite  dressed 


A  HONEYMOON  .    .    .  VIVE  L'AMERIQUE!      249 

them  in  coarse,  clean,  new  clothes,  which  she  told  me 
she  had  sold  her  watch  to  buy,  "  the  church-bell  strikes 
so  near  that  I  don't  need  a  watch  any  more,"  and  gave 
them  each  a  piece  of  bread  and  jam.  They  took  their 
departure  then,  stricken  into  an  astonished  silence,  and 
Marguerite  turned  to  me  with  an  angry  toss  of  her 
head,  "Do  you  know  what  the  war  is?"  she  asked  me 
fiercely.  "  /  know !  It  is  the  punishment  we  have  called 
down  on  ourselves.  I  see  now  that  the  war  has  only  in 
tensified  everything  that  existed  before,  it  has  changed 
nothing  fundamentally.  We  were  living  as  hideously 
in  a  state  of  war  before  as  now,  except  that  it  was  not 
physically  bloody.  There  were  children  in  this  awful 
house  then  as  now,  without  baths,  without  food,  without 
decency,  while  I  was  giving  all  my  energy  that  one  little 
boy  might  have  everything,  everything  that  he  could 
wish/' 

At  this  I  could  not  repress  a  protest,  calling  up  the 
very  modest  comforts  of  her  simple  home.  She  brushed 
me  aside.  "  It  was  luxurious,  sinfully,  wickedly 
luxurious  to  live  so  while  other  human  beings  were  liv 
ing  as  they  were  in  this  house.  Oh,  I  see  it  so  plainly, 
we  were  all  living  with  all  our  might  according  to  the 
horrible  Prussian  maxim  that  you  have  a  right  to  any 
thing  you're  strong  enough  to  keep  other  people  from 
sharing.  All  the  Germans  did  was  to  carry  it  to  its 
logical,  murdering  conclusion,  and  show  us  what  we 
really  were." 

I  could  not,  Heaven  knows,  deny  this,  but  I  ventured 


250  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

a  palliative  murmur.  "  But  at  least  we  are  ashamed  of 
it.  We  tried  to  hide  it.  We  never  gloried  in  it,  as  the 
Prussians  do." 

"  I  am  ashamed  of  it  now"  she  told  me  somberly, 
"  now  when  I  have  nothing,  nothing  to  use  as  help  but 
my  two  hands.  I  am  ashamed  of  it  now  when  it  is  too 
late." 

The  black  misery  on  her  face  was  such  that  I  brought 
out  the  foolish  phrase  I  had  been  repressing  all  during 
the  weeks  since  the  news  had  come :  "  Marguerite  dear 
est,  why  do  you  keep  such  a  dreadful  calm?  Wouldn't 
it  do  you  good  to  cry  ?  " 

"I?"  she  said  bitterly.  "I  haven't  the  right  to  cry! 
Look  at  my  neighbors !  " 

The  next  time  I  went  back  I  found  her  two  little 
rooms  full  of  children,  three  small  babies  on  the  bed, 
and  a  dozen  or  more  of  different  ages  playing  together, 
while  Marguerite,  in  a  long  black  apron,  stirred  a  soup- 
pot  on  the  charcoal  fire. 

!<  Their  mothers  are  working !  "  She  gave  me  this  as 
all-sufficient  explanation,  adding :  "  But  there  are  so 
many,  many  more  that  I  can't  help !  If  only  I  had  more 
room  to  take  them  in  ...  and  more  soup  .  .  .  and 
more  bread !  But  with  children  it's  wicked  to  start  more 
than  you  can  carry  on,  and  .  .  .  I've  made  the  calcula 
tion  ...  I  can't  possibly  help  any  more  than  there  are 
here!" 

I  noticed  that  the  feverish,  wild  look  had  gone  from 
her  eyes,  that  she  looked  steadied — infinitely  tragic — 


A  HONEYMOON  .    .    .  VIVE  L'AMERIQUE!      251 

but  quiet,  purposeful.  The  children  had  brought  her 
back  into  real  life  again. 

On  a  sudden  impulse  I  left  her,  and  went  to  telephone 
the  Halls,  asking  them  to  meet  me  near  there.  While  I 
waited  for  them,  I  found  myself  very  much  agitated,  my 
head  whirling  with  possibilities  for  Marguerite's  future, 
my  legs  a  little  unsteady  under  me.  I  revolved  the  best 
way  to  "  approach  "  them,  the  most  tactful  manner  of 
presenting  the  matter  to  them;  I  brought  to  mind  all 
the  painfully  acquired  war-relief  lore  about  "  managing  " 
people  with  money,  I  tried  to  recall  what  I  knew  of  them 
so  that  I  might  guess  at  some  weakness  of  theirs  to  ex 
ploit.  Perhaps  I  could  promise  to  get  recognition  for 
them  from  the  French  Ministry  of  the  Interior  .  .  . 
what  was  the  exact  name  of  that  medal  they  give  to  for 
eign  philanthropists,  of  course  not  the  red  ribbon,  but 
still  .  .  . 

In  the  midst  of  these  cheap  calculations,  their  taxi 
drove  up  to  the  curb,  they  stepped  out,  and  I  perceived 
that  I  had  forgotten  what  they  were.  It  was  not  sur 
prising.  I  lived  in  a  world  where  there  were  few  re 
minders  of  such  as  they.  Mr.  Hall  looked  at  me  out 
of  his  honest  eyes,  and  said  with  his  honest  American 
accent,  "  Well,  what's  doing?  "  and  I  found  myself  with 
out  preamble  giving  them  the  facts,  naked  facts,  without 
an  adjective  to  qualify  them,  without  a  single  picturesque 
arrangement.  I  did  not  even  make  an  appeal  to  them.  I 
simply  told  them  all  that  had  happened  since  the  death 
of  Marguerite's  husband.  I  even  hid  nothing  of  what 


252  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

Marguerite  had  said  which  might  seem  a  criticism  of 
their  way  of  life  and  of  mine.  I  told  them  all.  When  I 
finished,  they  glanced  at  each  other,  their  good  look  of 
deep  understanding  which,  in  the  cold,  ill-smelling  city 
street  was  like  a  gust  of  warm,  country-scented  air 
across  my  face.  Mrs.  Hall  said,  "  I  wonder  if  she'd 
mind  our  going  to  see  her?"  Mr.  Hall  qualified:  "Of 
course  if  you  think  best  not  to  ...  we're  not  acquainted 
with  her.  We  don't  want  to  seem  to  butt  in." 

We  found  her  giving  those  little  people  their  noonday 
meal,  hot  soup  and  bread.  Having  only  her  small  kitchen 
table  and  four  bowls,  the  children  came  in  relays.  The 
fear  of  those  who  waited,  lest  the  soup  should  give 
out  before  their  turn,  was  painful  to  see.  Marguerite 
glanced  at  my  companions,  surprised,  and  gave  me  a 
questioning,  half -challenging  look.  The  Halls  stood 
quietly  in  one  corner  of  the  dark  little  kitchen  and 
watched  the  white-faced  clean  little  mites,  all  their  inef 
fably  clear  child's  eyes  turned  on  the  tall,  pale  foster- 
mother,  bending  over  them,  serving  them,  stooping  to 
catch  a  timidly  murmured  request,  smoothing  a  little 
cheek,  tying  and  untying  their  bibs,  wiping  their  lips 
.  .  .  every  gesture  pregnant  with  passionate  motherli- 
ness.  To  me  she  wore  the  look  of  a  mother  who  re 
turns  to  her  brood  after  an  absence  and,  finding  them 
ill-cared  for  and  unhappy,  strives  burningly  and  remorse 
fully  to  give  them  their  lost  due  of  love  and  care. 

With  the  last  relay  of  four  occurred  a  tragedy.  Scrape 
as  she  might,  Marguerite  could  not  bring  out  of  the 


A  HONEYMOON  .    .    .  VIVE  L'AMERIQUE!      23 

kettle  more  than  enough  for  three  bowls.  For  a  moment, 
there  was  silent  consternation.  Then,  sighing,  without 
any  suggestion  from  Marguerite,  these  children  of  the 
poor,  began  dipping  from  their  portions  into  the  empty 
bowl.  There  was  on  their  thin  little  faces  a  patient  and 
unsurprised  resignation.  When  all  the  bowls  were 
equally  full,  they  set  to  eagerly,  a  natural  childlike  greed 
iness  coming  at  last  into  their  eyes.  I  glanced  at  Mr. 
Hall  and  saw  that  his  lips  were  moving  as  though 
in  some  exclamation,  but  I  could  not  catch  what  it 
was. 

When  the  last  drop  had  been  scraped  up  from  the  last 
bowl  and  Marguerite's  long  white  fingers  were  once  more 
immersed  in  dishwater,  I  ventured  to  bring  my  visitors  to 
her  and  introduce  them.  They  asked  a  few  questions 
which  Marguerite  answered  in  her  careful  book-English, 
astonished  and  a  little  nettled,  I  could  see  by  their  direct 
ness  and  lack  of  ceremony. 

Yes,  she  said,  turning  a  second  glance  of  interrogation 
on  me  .  .  .  who  were  these  strangers  in  her  house  ?  .  .  . 
yes,  there  were  other  lodgings  to  be  had  in  the  house 
where  she  could  care  for  more  children,  the  whole  top 
floor  was  a  big,  deserted  factory  loft  with  skylights  let 
ting  in  the  sun  and  with  windows  opening  on  a  flat-roof 
terrace  where  the  children  could  play.  But  of  course 
that  was  out  of  the  question.  The  rent  was  very  high, 
it  would  cost  a  great  deal  to  heat  the  room,  and  where 
could  she  get  money  to  feed  any  more  ?  .  .  .  "  Even 
with  the  number  I  have,  you  saw  ..." 


254  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

"Yes,"  they  said  hastily,  they  had  seen!  I  took  it 
from  their  accent  that  they  would  not  soon  forget  what 
they  had  seen. 

Mrs.  Hall  looked  at  her  husband,  their  serious,  elo 
quent  glance.  He  nodded,  cleared  his  throat,  and  took 
out  his  wallet,  that  famous  wallet!  I  remember  exactly 
what  he  said,  it  being  of  the  most  masterly  brevity,  and 
I  mean  to  set  it  down  textually  as  he  said  it.  What  I 
cannot  set  down  is  the  inimitable,  straight,  clear  gaze 
out  of  his  eyes,  as  he  looked  at  Marguerite,  everything 
but  their  common  humanity  forgotten.  He  said : 
"  Madame,  my  wife  and  I  want  to  help  you  help  these 
children.  I  am  going  to  leave  five  thousand  francs  with 
you  to-day,  for  you  to  rent  anything,  buy  anything,  do 
anything  you  think  best  for  the  children.  And  there 
will  always  be  plenty  more  where  that  came  from,  for 
you  to  go  on." 

Having  said  all  that  he  had  to  say,  he  was  silent, 
laying  down  on  the  table  with  his  card,  the  five  big  bank 
notes,  and  putting  on  them  one  of  the  children's  soup- 
bowls.  I  noted  especially  the  gentleness  with  which  he 
touched  the  coarse,  yellow  earthenware,  as  though  it 
were  of  great  value.  I  wondered  intensely  how  Mar 
guerite  could  thank  them.  I  did  not  venture  to  look  at 
her  face. 

Marguerite  did  not  thank  them  at  all.  She  stood  per 
fectly  motionless  for  a  moment,  and  then,  putting  her 
hands  over  her  face,  she  broke  into  a  storm  of  loud 
sobs.  The  tears  ran  down  between  her  thin  fingers  and 


A  HONEYMOON  .    .    .  VIVE  L'AMERIQUE!      255 

fell  on  the  coarse  yellow  bowl  and  on  the  bank 
notes.  .  .  . 

Mrs.  Hall  pulled  at  my  arm.  Mr.  Hall  opened  the 
door,  and  I  found  myself  stumbling  down  the  steep,  dark 
stairs,  holding  desperately  to  the  greasy  railing.  We 
groped  our  way  down,  step  by  step,  in  darkness  and  in 
silence,  until,  nearly  at  the  bottom,  I  called  back,  with 
a  quavering  attempt  at  a  jest,  "  But  how  about  the 
necessity  of  a  sound  business  basis?" 

From  the  fetid  darkness  above  me,  dropped  down  Mr. 
Hall's  clarion  American  accent,  "  Oh,  damn  a  sound 
business  basis ! " 

I  found  myself  obliged  to  wink  back  the  tears  which 
came  along  with  my  laughter. 

Emerging  into  the  gray  light  of  the  narrow  street,  I 
turned  to  wait  for  my  companions,  but  when  I  saw  the 
expression  of  their  faces  I  knew  I  should  not  be  missed, 
and  while  they  stood  to  hail  a  cab  I  made  hasty  fare 
wells  and  betook  myself  to  the  nearest  Metro  station,  my 
ears  ringing  as  though  I  had  been  hearing  the  loud,  tri 
umphant  note  of  trumpets. 

I  was  about  to  dive  into  the  anthole  of  the  subway  en 
trance  when  I  heard  my  name  called  and  saw  Mrs.  Hall's 
chic  little  toque  thrust  out  of  a  cab  window.  "  We  for 
got  to  tell  you,"  she  called  across  the  street  to  me,  "  that 
we  are  very  much  obliged  to  you  indeed  for  telephoning 


us." 


With  this  inimitable  farewell  they  vanished  again  from 
my  view  until  months  after  this  I  ran  across  them,  for 


256  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

the  last  time.  I  was  at  the  Gare  de  Lyon,  seeing  off  a 
blind  soldier  whom,  with  his  family,  we  had  been  able 
to  place  in  a  home  in  the  country.  As  usual  with  the 
poor,  to  whom  journeys  are  considerable  events,  we  had 
been  fearfully  ahead  of  time  because  they  were  in  a 
panic  for  fear  of  losing  their  train.  I  had  settled  our 
proteges  with  all  the  innumerable  valises,  baskets,  pack 
ages,  roll-ups,  and  wraps  which  are  the  accompaniment 
of  a  French  family,  even  the  humblest,  en  voyage,  had 
bidden  them  godspeed,  and  was  going  back  along  the 
platform  to  the  exit  when  I  was  confronted  by  a  familiar 
royal  effect  in  furs,  followed  by  a  mountain  of  magnifi 
cent  baggage  on  a  truck. 

"  Hello !  "  said  Mr.  Hall.  "  You  on  the  move  too  ?  " 
I  explained  my  presence  and  turned  back  to  walk  with 
them  to  their  train.  "  We  are  going  to  Italy,"  ex 
plained  Mrs.  Hall,  "  and  for  once  we  are  going  to  try 
and  take  Italy  something,  instead  of  just  getting  the 
most  out  of  her  the  way  we  have  done  and  everybody 
else  has  done  all  these  tourist  years." 

(I  had  some  reflections  of  my  own  about  what  Italian 
hotel  keepers  and  guides  had  taken  from  me,  but  I  kept 
them  to  myself,  recognizing  that  as  usual  I  was  on  a 
very  different  plane  from  the  Golden  Age  of  my  com 
panions.) 

'  You  see/'  explained  Mr.  Hall  in  their  astonishing, 
matter-of-fact  manner,  "  you  see  one  of  our  enterprises 
at  home  in  the  States  is  making  a  lot  more  money  than 
ever  before  because  of  the  war-manufacturing  .  .  . 


A  HONEYMOON  .    .    .  VIVE  L'AMERIQUE!      257 

now  that  the  Government  is  in  the  war,  at  last,  thank  the 
Lord!  Of  course,  that  money's  got  to  go  somehow  to 
make  up  for  some  of  the  harm  the  war  is  doing.  And 
it's  such  a  lot  that  it  can  swing  a  big  proposition.  We've 
thought  it  over  a  lot,  Margaret  and  I,  and  we've  decided 
to  put  it  into  helping  the  reforestation  movement  in 
Italy."  I  had  only  a  blank  glare  to  greet  this  idea,  so 
totally  unexpected  was  it  to  me.  They  hastened  to  ex 
pand,  both  of  them  talking  at  once,  with  a  fresh,  eager 
interest.  I  gleaned  the  idea  in  broken  bits  of  phrases, 
"...  terrible  floods  in  Italy  every  few  years  .  .  .  tops 
of  the  mountains  bare  and  eroded  .  .  .  campaign  of  edu 
cation  needed  ...  a  thousand  young  pines  to  the  acre 
.  .  .  forty  millions  needed  ...  a  fine  Italian  forestry 
society  already  existing  to  direct  the  work,  but  without 
funds  since  the  war  .  .  .  hundreds  of  thousands  of  acres 
to  be  reclaimed  ..."  My  head  whirled,  but  the  main 
outlines  were  clear. 

"  En  voiture!  "  shouted  an  employee  running  down  the 
quai. 

They  scrambled  into  their  car  hastily,  but  turned  at 
the  door  for  last  remarks.  "  We've  left  a  deposit  in  the 
bank  for  your  friend  with  the  tenement-house  children," 
they  suddenly  remembered  to  assure  me,  "  enough  for  a 
couple  of  years,  and  then,  whenever  she  needs  it,  we're 
right  here." 

Mrs.  Hall,  on  a  sudden  impulse,  stooped  low  to  give  me 
a  good-bye  kiss.  "  I  do  hope  your  husband  gets  back  all 
right  from  the  front !  "  she  said  earnestly,  divining  the 


258  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

constant  anxiety  of  my  every  moment,  and  then,  her  eyes 
shining,  "  Oh,  my  dear,  I  wonder  if  anybody  ever  was 
so  lucky  as  to  have  such  a  perfectly,  perfectly  lovely 
honeymoon  as  Robert  and  I !  " 

The  train  began  very  slowly  to  move.  I  walked  along 
beside  it,  dreading  to  see  the  last  of  those  clear  eyes. 
They  smiled  and  waved  their  hands.  They  looked  like 
super-people,  the  last  inhabitants  of  the  world  before  the 
war,  the  only  happy  human  beings  left. 

I  looked  after  them  longingly.  The  smooth,  oily 
movement  of  the  train  de  luxe  was  accelerated.  They 
were  gone. 

I  went  soberly  back  into  the  big  echoing  station  and 
out  into  the  dingy  winter  Paris  street. 

I  had  not  gone  ten  steps  before  I  was  quite  sure  again 
that  I  had  made  them  up,  out  of  my  head. 


LA  PHARMACIENNE 

WHEN  the  war  broke  out,  Madeleine  Brismantier  was 
the  very  type  and  epitome  of  all  which  up  to  that  time 
had  been  considered  "  normal "  for  a  modern  woman,  a 
nice,  modern  woman.  She  had  been  put  through  the 
severe  and  excellent  system  of  French  public  education 
in  her  native  town  of  Amiens,  and  had  done  so  well  with 
her  classes  that  when  she  was  nineteen  her  family  were 
thinking  of  feeding  her  into  the  hopper  of  the  system 
of  training  for  primary  teachers.  But  just  then,  when 
on  a  visit  in  a  smallish  Seine-et-Marne  town,  she  met 
the  fine,  upstanding  young  fellow  who  was  to  be  her 
husband.  He  was  young  too,  not  then  quite  through  the 
long  formidable  course  of  study  for  pharmacists,  so 
that  it  was  not  until  two  years  later,  when  Madeleine 
was  twenty-one  and  he  twenty-five,  that  they  were  mar 
ried,  and  Madeleine  left  Amiens  to  live  in  Mandrine,  the 
town  where  they  had  met. 

Jules  Brismantier's  father  had  been  the  principal  phar 
macist  there  all  his  life,  and  Jules  stepped  comfortably 
into  his  father's  shoes,  his  business,  and  the  lodgings  over 
the  pharmacy.  If  this  sounds  common  and  "  working- 
class ''  to  your  American  ears,  disabuse  yourself;  the 
habitation  over  the  pharmacy  was  as  well  ordered  and 
well  furnished  a  little  apartment  as  ever  existed  in  a 


260  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

"  strictly  residential  portion  "  of  any  American  suburb. 
The  beds  were  heir-looms,  and  were  of  mahogany,  there 
were  several  bits  of  excellent  furniture  in  the  small, 
white-paneled  salon,  and  three  pretty,  brocade-covered 
chairs  which  had  come  down  from  Madeleine's  great- 
grandmother;  there  was  a  piano  on  which  Madeleine, 
who  had  received  a  good  substantial  musical  training, 
played  the  best  music  there  is  in  the  world,  which  is  to 
say,  German  (Jules,  like  many  modern  young  French 
men,  had  a  special  cult  for  Beethoven) ;  and  there  was  a 
kitchen — oh,  you  should  have  seen  that  kitchen,  white 
tiles  on  the  walls  and  red  tiles  on  the  floor  and  all  around 
such  an  array  of  copper  and  enamel  utensils  as  can  only 
be  found  in  well-kept  kitchens  in  the  French  provinces 
where  one  of  the  main  amusements  and  occupations  of 
the  excellent  housewives  is  elaborate  cooking.  Further 
more,  there  was  in  the  big  oaken  chests  and  tall  cup 
boards  a  supply  of  bedding  which  would  have  made  us 
open  our  eyes,  used  as  we  are  to  our  (relatively  speak 
ing)  hand-to-mouth  American  methods.  Madeleine  had 
no  more  than  the  usual  number  of  sheets,  partly  laid 
aside  for  her,  piece  by  piece,  when  the  various  inherit 
ances  from  provincial  aunts  and  cousins  came  in,  partly 
left  there  in  the  house,  in  which  her  mother-in-law  had 
died  the  year  before  Madeleine's  marriage,  partly  bought 
for  her  (as  if  there  were  not  already  enough!)  to  make 
up  the  traditional  wedding  trousseau  without  which  no 
daughter  of  a  respectable  bourgeois  provincial  family  can 
be  married.  So  that,  taking  them  all  together,  she  had 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  261 

two  hundred  and  twenty  sheets,  every  one  linen,  varying 
from  the  delightfully  rough  old  homespun  and  home- 
woven  ones,  dating  from  nobody  knew  when,  down  to  the 
smooth,  fine,  glossy  ones  with  deep  hemstitching  on  the 
top  and  bottom,  and  Madeleine's  initials  set  in  a  deli 
cately  embroidered  wreath.  Of  course  she  had  pillow 
slips  to  go  with  them,  and  piles  of  woolen  blankets, 
fluffy,  soft  and  white,  and  a  big  puffy  eiderdown  covered 
with  bright  satin  as  the  finishing  touch  for  each  well- 
furnished  bed.  Madeleine  pretended  to  be  modern  some 
times,  and  to  say  it  was  absurd  to  have  so  many,  but 
in  her  heart,  inherited  from  long  generations  of  passion 
ately  home-keeping  women,  she  took  immense  satisfac 
tion  in  all  the  ample  furnishings  of  her  pretty  little  home. 
What  woman  would  not? 

Now,  although  all  this  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with 
what  happened  to  Madeleine,  I  am  afraid  you  will  think 
that  I  am  making  too  long  an  inventory  of  her  house, 
so  I  will  not  tell  you  about  the  shining  silver  in  the 
buffet  drawers,  nor  even  about  the  beautiful  old  walled 
garden,  full  of  flowers  and  vines  and  fruit-trees,  which 
lay  at  the  back  of  the  pharmacy.  The  back  windows 
of  the  new  bride's  habitation  looked  down  into  the  tree- 
tops  of  this  garden,  and  along  its  graveled  walks  her 
children  were  to  run  and  play. 

For  very  soon  the  new  family  began  to  grow:  first,  a 
little  blue-eyed  girl  like  Madeleine;  then,  two  years  later, 
a  dark-eyed  boy  like  Jules — all  very  suitable  and  as  it 
should  be,  like  everything  else  that  happened  to  Made- 


262  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

leine.  She  herself,  happily  absorbed  in  her  happy  life 
and  in  the  care  of  all  her  treasures,  reverted  rapidly  to 
type,  forgot  most  of  her  modern  education,  and  became 
a  model  wife  and  mother  on  the  pattern  of  all  the  other 
innumerable  model  wives  and  mothers  in  the  history  of 
her  provincial  family.  She  lived  well  within  their  rather 
small  income,  and  no  year  passed  without  their  adding 
to  the  modest  store  of  savings  which  had  come  down 
to  them  because  all  their  grandmothers  had  lived  well 
within  their  incomes.  They  kept  the  titles  relative  to 
this  little  fortune,  together  with  what  cash  they  had,  and 
all  their  family  papers,  in  a  safe  in  the  pharmacy,  sunk 
in  the  wall  and  ingeniously  hidden  behind  a  set  of  false 
shelves.  They  never  passed  this  hiding-place  without 
the  warm,  sheltered  feeling  which  a  comfortable  little 
fortune  gives, — the  feeling  which  poor  people  go  all 
their  lives  without  knowing. 

You  must  not  think,  because  I  speak  so  much  of  the 
comfortableness  of  the  life  of  this  typical  French  provin 
cial  family,  that  there  was  the  least  suspicion  of  laziness 
about  them.  Indeed,  such  intelligent  comfort  as  theirs 
is  only  to  be  had  at  the  price  of  diligent  and  well-directed 
effort.  Jules  worked  hard  all  day  in  the  pharmacy,  and 
made  less  money  than  would  have  contented  an  Ameri 
can  ten  years  his  junior.  Madeleine  planned  her  busy 
day  the  evening  before,  and  was  up  early  to  begin  it. 
The  house  was  always  immaculate,  the  meals  always  on 
time  (this  was  difficult  to  manage  with  Madeleine  cook 
ing  everything  and  only  a  rattle-headed  young  girl  to 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  263 

help)  and  always  delicious  and  varied.  Jules  mounted 
the  stairs  from  the  pharmacy  at  noon  and  in  the  evening, 
his  mouth  literally  watering  in  anticipation.  The  chil 
dren  were  always  as  exquisitely  fresh  and  well-cared  for 
as  only  French  children  of  the  better  classes  can  be,  with 
their  hair  curled  in  shining  ringlets  and  their  hands 
clean,  as  those  of  our  children  are  only  on  Sunday  morn 
ings.  Madeleine's  religion  was  to  keep  them  spotless 
and  healthful  and  smiling;  to  keep  Jules'  mouth  always 
watering  in  anticipation;  to  help  him  with  his  accounts 
in  the  evenings,  and  to  be  on  hand  during  the  day  to 
take  his  place  during  occasional  absences;  to  know  all 
about  the  business  end  of  their  affairs  and  to  have  their 
success  as  much  at  heart  as  he;  to  keep  her  lovely  old 
garden  flowering  and  luxuriant;  to  keep  her  lovely  old 
home  dainty  and  well  ordered;  and,  of  course,  to  keep 
herself  invariably  neat  with  the  miraculous  neatness  of 
French  women,  her  pretty,  soft  chestnut  hair  carefully 
dressed,  her  hands  white  and  all  her  attractive  person  as 
alluring  as  in  her  girlhood. 

Madeleine  saw  nothing  lacking  in  this  religion.  It 
seemed  to  her  all  that  life  could  demand  of  one  woman. 

In  the  spring  of  1914,  when  Raoul  was  five  years  old 
and  Sylvie  eight,  Madeleine  was  once  more  joyfully  sort 
ing  over  the  tiny  clothes  left  from  their  babyhood.  All 
that  summer  her  quick  fingers  were  busy  with  fine  white 
flannel  and  finer  white  nainsook,  setting  tiny  stitches  in 
small  garments.  Every  detail  of  the  great  event  was  pro 
vided  for  in  advance.  As  usual  in  French  families,  in 


264  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

all  good  families  everywhere,  the  mother-to-be  was 
lapped  around  with  tenderness  and  indulgence.  Made 
leine  was  a  little  queen-regnant  whose  every  whim  was 
law.  Of  course  she  wanted  her  mother  to  be  with  her, 
as  she  had  been  for  the  arrival  of  Sylvie  and  Raoul,  al 
though  her  mother  was  not  very  well,  and  detested  trav 
eling  in  hot  weather;  and  she  wanted  the  same  nurse 
she  had  had  before,  although  that  one  had  now  moved 
away  to  a  distant  city.  But  Madeleine  did  not  like  the 
voice  of  the  nurse  who  was  available  in  Mandrine,  and 
what  French  daughter  could  think  of  going  through  her 
great,  dreadful  hour  without  her  mother  by  her  to  com 
fort  and  reassure  her  and  to  take  the  responsibility  of 
everything!  So  of  course  the  nurse  was  engaged  and 
her  railway  fare  paid  in  advance,  and  of  course  Made 
leine's  mother  promised  to  come.  She  was  to  arrive 
considerably  in  advance  of  the  date,  somewhere  about  the 
middle  of  August.  All  this  was  not  so  unreasonable 
from  a  money  point  of  view  as  it  sounds,  for  when  they 
made  up  the  weekly  accounts  together  they  found  that 
the  business  was  doing  unusually  well. 

All  through  the  golden  July  heats  Madeleine  sewed 
and  waited.  Sometimes  in  the  pharmacy  near  Jules, 
sometimes  in  the  garden  where  Raoul  and  Sylvie,  in 
white  dresses,  ran  and  played  gently  up  and  down  the 
paths.  They  played  together  mostly  and  had  few  little 
friends,  because  there  were  not  many  "  nice "  families 
living  near  them,  and  a  good  many  that  weren't  nice. 
Of  course  Madeleine  kept  her  children  rigorously  separ- 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  265 

ated  from  these  children,  who  were  never  in  white  but 
in  the  plainest  of  cheap  gingham  aprons,  changed  only 
once  a  week,  and  who  never  wore  shapely,  well-cut  little 
shoes,  but  slumped  about  heavily  in  the  wooden-soled, 
leather-topped  "  galoches  "  which  are  the  national  foot 
gear  for  poor  French  children.  Like  many  good  mothers 
in  France  (are  there  any  like  that  elsewhere?)  Made 
leine  looked  at  other  people's  children  chiefly  to  see  if 
they  were  or  were  not  "  desirable  "  playmates  for  her 
own;  and  Sylvie  and  Raoul  were  not  three  years  old 
before  they  had  also  learned  the  art  of  telling  at  a  glance 
whether  another  child  was  a  nice  child  or  not,  the  ques 
tion  being  settled  of  course  by  the  kind  of  clothes  he 
wore. 

July  was  a  beautiful  month  of  glorious  sun  and  ripen 
ing  weather.  For  hours  at  a  time  in  her  lovely  green 
nest,  Madeleine  sat  happily,  resting  or  embroidering, 
the  peaches  pleached  against  the  high  stone  walls  swell 
ing  and  reddening  visibly  from  one  day  to  the 
next,  the  lilies  opening  flaming  petals  day  by  day,  the 
children  growing  vigorously.  Jules  told  his  pretty  wife 
fondly  that  she  looked  not  a  day  older  than  on  the  day 
of  their  marriage,  ten  years  before.  This  was  quite  true, 
but  I  am  not  so  sure  as  Jules  that  it  was  the  highest 
of  compliments  to  Madeleine. 

The  last  week  of  July  came,  the  high-tide  moment  of 
lush  growth.  Madeleine  was  bathed  in  the  golden, 
dreamy  content  which  comes  to  happy,  much-loved 
women  in  her  condition.  It  was  the  best  possible  of 


266  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

worlds,  she  had  the  best  possible  of  husbands  and  chil 
dren,  and  she  was  sure  that  nobody  could  say  that  she 
had  not  cultivated  her  garden  to  be  the  best  possible  of 
its  kind.  The  world  seemed  to  stand  still  in  a  sunny 
haze,  centered  about  their  happiness. 

Drenched  in  sunshine  and  peace,  their  little  barque 
was  carried  rapidly  along  by  the  Niagara  river  of  his 
tory  over  the  last  stretch  of  smooth,  shining  water 
which  separated  them  from  the  abyss. 

I  dare  not  tell  you  a  single  word  about  those  first  four 
days  in  August,  of  the  utter  incredulity  which  swiftly, 
from  one  dreadful  hour  to  the  next,  changed  to  black 
horror.  Their  barque  had  shot  over  the  edge,  and  in  a 
wild  tumult  of  ravening  waters  they  were  all  falling  to 
gether  down  into  the  fathomless  gulf.  And  there  are  not 
words  to  describe  to  you  the  day  of  mobilization,  when 
Jules,  in  his  wrinkled  uniform,  smelling  of  moth-balls, 
said  good-bye  to  his  young  wife  and  little  children  and 
marched  away  to  do  his  best  to  defend  them. 

There  are  many  things  in  real  life  too  horrible  to  be 
spoken  of,  and  that  farewell  is  one. 

There  was  Madeleine  in  the  empty  house,  heavy  with 
her  time  of  trial  close  upon  her;  with  two  little  children 
depending  on  her  for  safety  and  care  and  cheer;  with 
only  a  foolish  little  young  maid  to  help  her;  with  such  a 
terrible  anxiety  about  her  husband  that  the  mere  thought 
of  him  sent  her  reeling  against  the  nearest  support. 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  267 

Almost  at  once  came  the  Mayor  in  person,  venerable 
and  white-bearded,  to  gather  up  the  weapons  in  all  the 
houses.  To  Madeleine,  wondering  at  this,  he  explained 
that  he  did  it,  so  that  if  the  Germans  came  to  Mandrine 
he  could  give  his  word  of  honor  there  were  no  concealed 
arms  in  the  town. 

It  was  as  though  thunder  had  burst  there  in  the  little 
room.  Madeleine  stared  at  him,  deathly  white.  '  You 
don't  think  .  .  .  you  don't  think  it  possible  that  the 
Germans  will  get  as  far  as  this! "  The  idea  that  she 
and  the  children  might  be  in  danger  was  inconceivable 
to  her.  Monsieur  le  Maire  hastened  to  reassure  her,  re 
membering  her  condition,  and  annoyed  that  he  should 
have  spoken  out.  "  No,  no,  this  is  only  a  measure  of  pre 
caution,  to  leave  nothing  undone."  He  went  away,  after 
having  taken  Jules'  shotgun,  her  little  revolver,  and  even 
a  lockless,  flintless  old  musket  which  had  belonged  to 
some  of  the  kin  who  had  followed  Napoleon  to  Russia. 
As  he  left,  he  said,  "  Personally  I  have  not  the  faintest 
idea  they  will  penetrate  as  far  as  Mandrine — not  the 
faintest!  " 

Of  course  when  Jules  left,  no  one  had  the  faintest 
idea  that  his  peaceful  home  town  would  see  anything 
of  the  war.  That  horror,  at  least,  was  spared  the  young 
husband  and  father.  But  during  the  fortnight  after  his 
departure,  although  there  were  no  newspapers,  practically 
no  trains,  and  no  information  except  a  brief,  brief  an 
nouncement,  written  by  hand,  in  ink,  posted  every  day 
on  the  door  of  the  Town  Hall,  the  air  began  to  be  un- 


268  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

breathable,  because  of  rumors,  sickening  rumors,  unbe 
lievable  ones  .  .  .  that  Belgium  was  invaded,  although 
not  in  the  war  at  all,  and  that  Belgian  cities  and  villages 
were  being  sacked  and  burned ;  that  the  whole  north  coun 
try  was  one  great  bonfire  of  burning  villages  and  farms; 
then  that  the  Germans  were  near!  Were  nearer!  And 
then  all  at  once,  quite  definitely,  that  they  were  within 
two  days*  march. 

Every  one  who  could,  got  out  of  Mandrine,  but  the 
only  conveyances  left  were  big  jolting  farm-wagons 
piled  high  with  household  gear;  wagons  which  went 
rumbling  off,  drawn  by  sweating  horses  lashed  into  a 
gallop  by  panic-stricken  boys,  wagons  which  took  you, 
nobody  knew  where,  away!  away!  which  might  break 
down  and  leave  you  anywhere,  beside  the  road,  in  a 
barn,  in  a  wood,  in  the  hands  of  the  Germans  .  .  . 
for  nobody  knew  where  they  were.  The  frightened 
neighbors,  clutching  their  belongings  into  bundles,  of 
fered  repeatedly  to  take  Madeleine  and  the  children  with 
them.  Should  she  go  or  not  ?  There  was  nobody  to  help 
her  decide.  The  little  fluttering  maid  was  worse  than 
nothing,  the  children  were  only  babies  to  be  taken  care  of. 
After  her  charges  were  all  in  bed,  that  last  night,  Made 
leine  wrung  her  hands,  walking  up  and  down  the  room, 
literally  sick  with  indecision.  What  ought  she  to  do? 
It  was  the  first  great  decision  she  had  ever  been  forced 
to  make  alone. 

The  last  of  the  fleeing  carts  went  without  her.  Dur 
ing  the  night  she  had  come  to  know  that  the  first,  the 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  269 

most  vital  of  all  the  innumerable  and  tragic  needs  of  the 
hour  was  the  life  of  the  unborn  baby.  She  was  forced 
to  cling  to  the  refuge  she  had.  She  did  not  dare  fare 
forth  into  the  unknown  until  she  had  her  baby  safely 
in  her  arms. 

And  perhaps  the  Germans  would  not  come  to  Man- 
drine. 

For  two  days  the  few  people  left  in  town  lived  in  a 
sultry  suspense,  with  no  news,  with  every  fear.  M.  le 
Cure  had  stayed  with  his  church;  M.  le  Maire  stayed 
with  the  town  records,  and  his  white-haired  old  wife 
stayed  to  be  with  her  husband  (they  had  never  been 
separated  during  the  forty  years  of  their  marriage) ;  good 
fresh-faced  Sister  Ste.  Lucie,  the  old  nun  in  charge  of 
the  little  Hospice,  stayed  with  some  bed-ridden  invalids 
who  could  not  be  moved;  and  there  were  poor  people 
who  had  stayed  for  the  reason  which  makes  poor  people 
do  so  many  other  things,  because  they  could  not  help  it, 
because  they  did  not  own  a  cart,  nor  a  wheelbarrow,  nor 
even  a  child's  perambulator  in  which  to  take  along  the 
old  grandfather  or  the  sick  mother  who  could  not  walk. 
Sceur  Ste.  Lucie  promised  to  come  to  be  with  Madeleine 
whenever  she  should  send  the  little  maid  with  the  sum 
mons. 

Madeleine  sickened  and  shivered  and  paled  during 
these  two  endless  days  and  sleepless  nights  of  suspense. 
There  were  times  when  she  felt  she  must  die  of  sheer 
horror  at  the  situation  in  which  she  found  herself,  that 


270  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

it  was  asking  too  much  of  her  to  make  her  go  on  living. 
At  such  moments  she  shook  as  though  in  a  palsy  and  her 
voice  trembled  so  that  she  could  not  speak  aloud.  There 
were  other  times  when  she  was  in  an  unnatural  calm,  be 
cause  she  was  absolutely  certain  that  she  was  dreaming 
and  must  soon  wake  up  to  find  Jules  beside  her. 

The  children  played  in  the  garden.  They  discovered 
a  toad  there,  during  that  time,  and  Madeleine  often 
heard  them  shouting  with  laughter  over  its  antics.  The 
silly  little  maid  came  every  few  moments  to  tell  her 
mistress  a  new  rumor  .  .  .  she  had  heard  the  Germans 
were  cannibals  and  ate  little  children,  was  that  true? 
And  was  it  true  that  they  had  a  special  technique  for 
burning  down  whole  towns  at  once,  with  kerosene  pumps 
and  dynamite  petards?  One  story  seemed  as  foolish  as 
the  other  to  Madeleine,  who  hushed  her  angrily  and  told 
her  not  to  listen  to  such  lies.  Once  the  little  maid  began 
to  tell  her  in  a  terrified  whisper  what  she  had  heard  the 
Germans  did  to  women  in  Madeleine's  condition  .  .  . 
but  the  recital  was  cut  short  by  a  terrible  attack  of  nausea 
which  lasted  for  hours  and  left  Madeleine  so  weak  that 
she  could  not  raise  her  head  from  the  pillow.  She  lay 
there,  tasting  the  bitterness  of  utter  necessity.  Weak 
as  she  was,  she  was  the  strongest  of  their  little  band. 
Presently  she  rose  and  resumed  the  occupations  of  the 
day,  but  she  was  stooped  forward  for  very  feebleness 
like  an  old  woman. 

She  told  herself  that  she  did  not  believe  a  single  word 
the  terror-stricken  little  maid  had  told  her;  but  the 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  271 

truth  was  that  she  was  half  dead  with  fear,  age-old,  ter 
rible,  physical  fear,  which  had  been  as  far  from  her  life 
before  as  a  desire  to  eat  raw  meat  or  to  do  murder.  It 
was  almost  like  a  stroke  of  paralysis  to  this  modern 
woman. 

For  two  whole  days  the  town  lay  silent  and  helpless, 
waiting  the  blow,  in  an  eternity  of  dread.  On  the  morn 
ing  of  the  third  day  the  sound  of  clumsily  clattering 
hoofs  in  the  deserted  street  brought  Madeleine  rushing 
downstairs  to  the  door  of  the  pharmacy.  An  old  farmer, 
mounted  on  a  sweating  plow  horse,  drew  rein  for  an 
instant  in  the  sun  and,  breathing  hard,  gave  die  news  to 
the  little  cluster  of  white-faced  women  and  old  men  who 
gathered  about  him.  Madeleine  pressed  in  beside  her 
poorer  neighbors,  closer  to  them  than  at  any  time  in  her 
life,  straining  up  to  the  messenger,  like  them,  to  hear 
the  stroke  of  fate.  Its  menacing  note  boomed  hollowly 
in  their  ears.  The  Germans  were  in  the  next  town, 
Larot-en-Multien,  only  eight  miles  away.  The  vanguard 
had  stopped  there  to  drink  and  eat,  but  behind  them  was 
an  antlike  gray  horde  which  pressed  steadily  forward 
with  incredible  haste  and  would  be  in  Mandrine  within 
two  hours. 

He  gathered  up  his  reins  to  go  on,  but  paused  to  add 
a  brief  suggestion  as  to  what  they  might  expect.  The 
Germans  were  too  hurried  to  burn  or  to  destroy  houses; 
they  were  only  taking  everything  which  was  easily  port 
able.  They  had  robbed  the  church,  had  taken  all  the  flour 
from  the  mill,  all  the  contents  of  all  the  shops,  and  when 


272  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

he  left  (the  sight  of  the  shining  plate-glass  windows  of 
the  pharmacy  reminded  him)  they  were  just  in  the  act  of 
looting  systematically  the  pharmacy  of  Larot,  taking- 
down  all  the  contents  of  the  shelves  and  packing  them 
carefully  into  a  big  camion. 

He  rode  on.  The  women  dispersed,  scurrying  rapidly 
each  to  her  dependents,  children,  or  sick  women,  or  old 
men.  The  Mayor  hurried  away  to  carry  a  few  more  of 
his  priceless  town  records  to  the  hiding-place.  The  priest 
went  back  to  his  church.  For  an  instant  Madeleine  was 
left  alone  in  the  empty  street,  echoing  to  disaster  impend 
ing.  She  looked  at  the  pharmacy,  shining,  well  ordered, 
well  stocked,  useful,  as  Jules  had  left  it. 

At  the  call  to  action  her  sickness  vanished  like  a  mere 
passing  giddiness.  Her  knees  stiffened  in  anger.  They 
should  not  carry  off  everything  from  the  Mandrine 
pharmacy!  What  could  the  town  do  without  remedies 
for  its  sick?  The  mere  first  breath  from  the  approach 
ing  tornado  annihilating  all  in  its  path  crashed  through 
the  wall  which  had  sheltered  her  small,  comfortably  ar 
ranged  life.  Through  the  breach  in  the  wall  she  had  a 
passing  glimpse  of  what  the  pharmacy  was;  not  merely  a 
convenient  way  for  Jules  to  earn  enough  for  her  and  the 
children  to  live  agreeably,  but  one  of  the  vital  necessities 
of  the  community  life,  a  very  important  trust  which 
Jules  held. 

And  now  Jules  was  gone  and  could  not  defend  it. 
But  she  was  there. 

She  ran  back  into  the  shop,  calling  for  her  little  maid, 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  273 

in  a  loud,  clear  voice  such  as  had  not  issued  from  her 
throat  since  Jules  had  gone  away.  "  Simone !  Simone !" 

The  maid  came  running  down  the  stairs  and  at  the 
first  sight  of  her  mistress  expected  to  hear  that  her 
master  had  returned  or  that  the  French  troops  were  there, 
so  like  herself  did  Madeleine  seem,  no  longer  stooping 
and  shivering  and  paper-white,  but  upright,  with  hard, 
bright  eyes.  But  it  was  no  good  news  which  she  brought 
out  in  the  new  ringing  voice.  She  said :  "  The  Germans 
will  be  here  in  two  hours.  Help  me  quickly  hide  the 
things  in  the  cellar  .  .  .  you  know,  the  further  room 
.  .  .  and  we  can  put  the  hanging  shelves  over  the  door 
so  they  won't  know  there  is  another  part  to  the  cellar. 
Bring  down  the  two  big  trays  from  the  kitchen.  We 
can  carry  more  that  way.  Then  light  two  or  three 
candles  up  and  down  the  cellar  stairs.  It  won't  do  for 
me  to  fall,  these  last  days." 

She  was  gathering  the  big  jars  together  as  she  spoke, 
and  taking  out  the  innumerable  big  and  little  drawers. 

In  a  moment  the  two  women,  one  who  had  been  hardly 
strong  enough  to  walk,  the  other  scarcely  more  than  a 
child,  were  going  slowly  down  the  cellar  stairs,  their 
arms  aching  with  the  weight  of  the  trays  and  then  run 
ning  back  upstairs  in  feverish  haste.  Shelf  after  shelf 
was  cleared  of  the  precious  remedies  that  meant  health, 
that  might  mean  life,  in  the  days  to  come.  The  minutes 
slipped  past.  An  hour  had  gone. 

From  her  attic  windows  from  where  she  could  see 
the  road  leading  to  Lorat-en-Multien,  a  neighbor  called 


274  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

down  shrilly  that  dust  was  rising  up  in  thick  clouds  at 
the  lower  end.  And  even  as  she  called,  silently,  com 
posedly,  there  pedaled  into  the  long  main  street  five 
or  six  men  in  gray  uniforms  on  bicycles,  quite  calm  and 
sure  of  themselves,  evidently  knowing  very  well  that  the 
place  had  no  defenders.  Madeleine  saw  the  white  hair 
of  M.  le  Cure  and  the  white  beard  of  M.  le  Maire  advance 
to  meet  the  invaders. 

*'  We  can't  do  any  more  here,"  she  said.  "  Down  to 
the  cellar  now,  to  mask  the  door.  No,  I'll  do  it  alone. 
Somebody  must  be  here  to  warn  us.  We  mustn't  be 
caught  down  there."  She  turned  to  go,  and  came  back. 
"  But  I  can't  move  the  hanging  shelves  alone ! " 

Simone  ventured,  "Mile.  Sylvie?  Could  she  watch 
and  tell  us?" 

Madeleine  hesitated  a  fraction.  Sylvie,  like  her 
mother,  had  been  asked  to  do  very  little  with  herself  ex 
cept  to  be  a  nice  person. 

Then,  "  Sylvie!  Sylvie!"  called  her  mother  with  de 
cision. 

The  little  girl  came  running  docilely,  her  clear  eyes 
wide  in  candid  wonder. 

Madeleine  bent  on  her  a  white,  stern  face  of  com 
mand.  "  The  Germans  are  almost  here.  Simone  and  I 
have  been  hiding  papa's  drugs  in  the  cellar  and  we've 
not  finished.  Stay  here  .  .  .  pretend  to  be  playing  .  .  . 
and  call  to  us  the  moment  you  see  the  soldiers  coming. 
Do  you  understand?" 

Sylvie  received  her  small  baptism  of  fire  with  courage. 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  275 

Her  chin  began  to  tremble  and  she  grew  very  white. 
This  was  not  because  she  was  afraid  of  the  Germans. 
Madeleine  had  protected  her  from  all  the  horrid  stories 
which  filled  the  town,  and  she  had  only  the  vaguest  baby 
notions  of  what  the  Germans  were.  It  was  her  mother's 
aspect,  awful  to  the  child,  which  terrified  her.  But  it 
also  braced  her  to  effort.  She  folded  her  little  white 
lips  hard  and  nodded.  Madeleine  and  the  maid  went 
down  the  cellar  stairs  for  the  last  time. 

When  they  came  back,  the  troops  were  still  not  there, 
although  one  could  see  beyond  the  river  the  cloud  of 
white  dust  raised  by  their  myriad  feet.  The  two  women 
were  covered  with  earth  and  cobwebs,  and  were  breath 
ing  heavily.  Their  knees  shook  under  them.  Taking 
the  child  with  them,  they  went  up  the  stairs  to  the  de 
fenseless  home.  They  found  five-year-old  Raoul  just 
finishing  the  house-and-farmyard  which  he  and  Sylvie 
were  beginning  when  she  was  called  down.  "If  only  I 
had  three  more  blocks  to  do  this  corner !  "  he  lamented. 

Twenty  minutes  from  that  time  they  heard  heavy, 
rapid  footsteps  enter  the  shop  below  and  storm  up  the 
stairs.  There  was  a  loud  knocking,  and  the  sound  of 
men's  voices  in  a  strange  language. 

Madeleine  went  herself  to  open  the  door.  This  was 
not  an  act  of  bravery  but  of  dire  necessity.  There  was 
no  one  else  to  do  it.  She  had  already  sent  the  children 
to  the  most  remote  of  the  rooms,  and  at  the  sound  of 
those  trampling  feet  and  hoarse  voices  Simone  had  run 


276  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

away,  screaming.  Madeleine's  fingers  shook  as  she 
pushed  back  the  bolt.  A  queer  pulse  began  to  beat  very 
fast  in  the  back  of  her  dry  throat. 

The  first  Germans  she  had  ever  seen  were  there  before 
her.  Four  or  five  tall,  broad,  red-faced  men,  very  hot, 
very  dusty,  in  gray,  wrinkled  uniforms  and  big  boots, 
pushed  into  the  room  past  her.  One  of  them  said  to 
her  in  broken  French :  "  Eat !  Eat !  Drink !  Very 
thirsty.  Quick ! "  The  others  had  already  seized  the 
bottles  on  the  sideboard  and  were  drinking  from  them. 

Madeleine  went  into  the  kitchen  and  brought  back  on  a 
big  tray  everything  ready-cooked  which  was  there:  a 
dish  of  stew,  cold  and  unappetizing  in  its  congealed  fat, 
a  long  loaf  of  bread,  a  big  piece  of  cheese,  a  platter  of 
cooked  beans.  .  .  .  The  men  drinking  at  the  sideboard 
cried  aloud  hoarsely  and  fell  upon  the  contents  of  the 
tray,  clutching,  cramming  food  into  their  mouths,  into 
their  pockets,  gulping  down  the  cold  stew  in  huge  mouth- 
fuls,  shoveling  the  beans  up  in  their  dirty  hands  and 
plastering  them  into  their  mouths,  already  full.  .  .  . 

Some  one  called,  warningly,  from  below.  The  men 
snatched  up  what  bottles  were  at  hand,  thrust  them  into 
their  pockets,  and  still  tearing  off  huge  mouthfuls  from 
the  cheese,  the  bread,  the  meat,  they  held,  and  masticat 
ing  them  with  animal  noises,  turned  and  clattered  down 
the  stairs  again,  having  paid  no  more  attention  to  Made 
leine  than  if  she  had  been  a  piece  of  the  furniture. 

They  had  come  and  gone  so  rapidly  that  she  had  the 
impression  of  a  vivid,  passing  hallucination.  For  an  in- 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  277 

stant  she  continued  to  see  them  there  still,  in  lightning 
flashes.  Everywhere  she  looked,  she  saw  yellow  teeth, 
gnawing  and  tearing  at  food;  bulging  jaw-muscles  strain 
ing;  dirty  foreheads  streaked  with  perspiration,  wrinkled 
like  those  of  eating  dogs;  bloodshot  eyes  glaring  in  phys 
ical  greed. 

"  Oh,  les  sales  betes !  "  she  cried  out  loud.  "  The  dirty 
beasts!" 

Her  fear  left  her,  never  to  come  back,  swept  away 
by  a  bitter  contempt.  She  went,  her  lip  curling,  her 
knees  quite  strong  under  her,  to  reassure  Simone  and 
the  children. 

The  house  shook,  the  windows  rattled,  the  glasses 
danced  on  the  sideboard  to  the  thunder  of  the  innumer 
able  marching  feet  outside,  to  the  endless  rumble  of  the 
camions  and  artillery.  The  volume  of  this  wild  din,  and 
the  hurried  pulse  of  straining  haste  which  was  its  rhythm, 
staggered  the  imagination.  Madeleine  scorned  to  look 
out  of  the  window,  although  Simone  and  the  children 
called  to  her  from  behind  the  curtains :  "  There  are  mil 
lions  and  millions  of  them!  They  are  like  flies!  You 
couldn't  cross  the  street,  not  even  running  fast,  they 
are  so  close  together !  And  how  they  hurry !  " 

Madeleine  heard  some  one  come  up  the  stairs  and  enter 
the  hall  without  knocking.  She  found  there  a  well- 
dressed  man  with  slightly  gray  hair  who  informed  her 
in  correct  French,  pronounced  with  a  strong  accent,  that 
he  would  return  in  one  hour  bringing  with  him  four 
other  officers  and  that  he  would  expect  to  find  food  and 


278  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

drink  ready  for  them.  Having  said  this  in  the  de 
tached,  casual  tone  of  command  of  a  man  giving  an 
order  to  a  servant,  he  went  away  down  the  stairs,  un 
folding  a  map. 

Madeleine  had  all  but  cried  an  angry  refusal  after 
him,  but,  as  brutally  as  on  a  gag  in  her  mouth,  she 
choked  on  the  sense  of  her  absolute  defenselessness  in  the 
face  of  physical  force.  This  is  a  sensation  which  mod 
erns  have  blessedly  forgotten,  like  the  old  primitive  fear 
of  darkness  or  of  thunder.  To  feel  it  again  is  to  be 
bitterly  shamed.  Madeleine  was  all  one  crimson  flame  of 
humiliation  as  she  called  Simone  and  went  into  the 
kitchen. 

They  cooked  the  meal  and  served  it  an  hour  later  to 
five  excited,  elated  officers,  spreading  out  maps  as  they 
ate,  laughing,  drinking  prodigiously  and  eating,  with  in 
conceivable  rapidity,  such  vast  quantities  of  food  that 
Simone  was  sure  she  was  serving  demons  and  not  human 
beings  and  crossed  herself  repeatedly  as  she  waited  on 
table.  In  spite  of  all  their  haste  they  had  not  time  to 
finish.  Another  officer  came  up  the  stairs,  thrust  his 
head  in  through  the  door,  and  called  a  summons  to  them. 
They  sprang  up,  in  high  feather  at  what  he  had  said, 
snatching  at  the  fruit  which  Simone  had  just  set  on  the 
table.  Madeleine  saw  one  of  her  guests  crowd  a  whole 
peach,  as  big  as  an  apple,  into  his  mouth  at  once,  and 
depart,  choking  and  chewing,  leaning  over  so  that  the 
stream  of  juice  which  ran  from  his  mouth  should  not  fall 
on  his  uniform. 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  279 

Simone  shrieked  from  the  kitchen,  "  Oh,  madame ! 
The  garden !  The  garden !  " 

Madeleine  ran  to  a  window,  looked  down,  and  saw 
long  rows  of  horses  picketed  in  the  garden.  Two  Ger 
man  soldiers  were  throwing  down  hay  from  the  gable 
end  of  the  Mandrine  livery-stable  which  overlooked  the 
wall.  The  horses  ate  with  hungry  zest,  stamping  vigor 
ously  in  the  flowerbeds  to  keep  off  the  flies.  When  they 
had  finished  on  the  hay,  they  began  on  the  vines,  the 
little,  carefully  tended  fruit-trees,  the  bushes,  the  flowers. 
A  swarm  of  locusts  could  not  have  done  the  work  more 
thoroughly. 

As  she  stood  there,  gazing  down  on  this,  there  was 
always  in  Madeleine's  ears  the  incessant  thundering 
rumble  of  the  passing  artillery.  .  .  . 

Through  the  din  there  reached  her  ears  a  summons 
roared  out  from  below :  "  Cellar !  Cellar !  Key !  " 

She  was  at  white  heat.  She  ran  downstairs,  forget 
ting  all  fear,  and,  raising  her  voice  to  make  herself  heard 
above  the  uproar  outside,  she  shouted  with  a  passionate 
wrath  which  knew  no  prudence :  "  You  low,  vile  thieves ! 
I  will  not  give  you  one  thing  more !  " 

Her  puny  defiance  to  the  whirlwind  passed  un 
noticed.  The  men  did  not  even  take  the  time  to  strike 
her,  to  curse  her.  With  one  movement  they  turned  from 
her  to  the  cellar  door,  and,  all  kicking  at  it  together, 
burst  it  open,  trooped  downstairs,  returning  with  their 
arms  full  of  bottles  and  ran  out  into  the  street. 

And  all  the  time  the  very  air  shook,  in  almost  visible 


28o  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

waves,  to  the  incessant  thundering  rumble  of  the  artil 
lery  passing. 

Madeleine  went  upstairs,  gripping  the  railing  hard, 
her  head  whirling.  She  had  scarcely  closed  the  door  be 
hind  her  when  it  was  burst  open  and  five  soldiers  stormed 
in,  cocked  revolvers  in  their  fists.  They  did  not  give 
her  a  look,  but  tore  through  the  apartment,  searching  in 
every  corner,  in  every  closet,  pulling  out  the  drawers  of 
the  bureaus,  tumbling  the  contents  on  the  floor,  sweeping 
the  cupboard  shelves  clear  in  one  movement  of  their 
great  hands,  with  the  insane  haste  which  characterized 
everything  done  that  day.  When  they  had  finished  they 
clattered  out,  chalking  up  something  unintelligible  on 
the  door.  Raoul  and  Sylvie  began  to  cry  wildly,  their 
nerves  undone,  and  to  clutch  at  their  mother's  skirts. 

Madeleine  took  them  back  into  their  own  little  room, 
undressed  them  and  put  them  to  bed,  where  she  gave 
them  each  a  bowl  of  bread  and  milk.  All  this  she  did 
with  a  quiet  air  of  confidence  which  comforted  the  chil 
dren.  They  had  scarcely  finished  eating  when  they  fell 
asleep,  worn  out.  Madeleine  heard  Simone  calling  for 
her  and  went  out  in  the  hall.  A  German  soldier,  desper 
ately  drunk,  held  out  a  note  which  stated  that  four  Herr- 
Lieutenants  and  a  Herr-Captain  would  eat  and  sleep 
there  that  night,  dinner  to  be  sharp  at  seven,  and  the 
beds  ready. 

After  delivering  this  he  tried  to  put  his  arm  around 
Simone  and  to  drag  her  into  the  next  room.  Simone 
struggled  and  screamed,  shriek  after  shriek,  horribly. 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  281 

Madeleine  screamed  too,  and  snatching  up  the  poker, 
flung  herself  on  the  man.  He  released  his  hold,  too  un 
certain  on  his  feet  to  resist.  Both  women  threw  them 
selves  against  him,  pushing  him  to  the  door  and  shoving 
him  out  on  the  narrow  landing,  where  he  lost  his  balance 
and  fell  heavily,  rolling  over  and  over,  down  the 
stairs. 

Madeleine  bolted  the  door,  took  a  long  knife  from 
the  kitchen  table,  and  waited,  her  ear  at  the  keyhole,  to 
see  if  he  tried  to  come  back. 

This  was  the  woman,  you  must  remember,  who  less 
than  a  month  before  had  been  sitting  in  the  garden  sew 
ing  on  fine  linen,  safe  in  an  unfathomable  security. 

The  man  did  not  attempt  to  return.  Madeleine  re 
laxed  her  tense  crouching  attitude  and  laid  the  knife 
down  on  the  table.  The  perspiration  was  streaming  down 
her  white  cheeks.  It  came  over  her  with  piercing  horror 
that  their  screams  had  not  received  the  slightest  response 
from  the  outside  world.  No  one  was  responsible  for 
their  safety.  No  one  cared  what  became  of  them.  It 
made  no  difference  to  any  one  whether  they  had  re 
pelled  that  man,  or  whether  he  had  triumphed  over 
their  resistance.  .  .  . 

And  now  she  must  command  her  shaking  knees  and 
trembling  hands  to  prepare  food  for  those  who  had 
sent  him  there.  Of  all  the  violent  efforts  Madeleine 
had  been  forced  to  make  none  was  more  racking  than 
to  stoop  to  the  servility  of  this  submission.  She  had  an 
instant  of  frenzy  when  she  thought  of  locking  the  door 


282  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

and  defying  them  to  enter,  but  the  recollection  of  the 
assault  on  the  thick  oaken  planks  of  the  cellar  door,  and 
of  its  splintering  collapse  before  those  huge  hobnailed 
boots,  sent  her  to  the  kitchen,  her  teeth  set  in  her  lower 
lip.  "  I  never  will  forgive  them  this,  never,  never, 
never !  "  she  said  aloud  passionately,  more  passionately 
than  she  had  ever  said  anything  in  her  life,  and  she 
knew  as  she  spoke  that  it  was  not  of  the  slightest  conse 
quence  to  any  one  whether  she  would  or  not. 

At  seven  the  meal  was  ready.  At  half -past  seven  the 
four  officers  entered,  laughing,  talking  loudly,  jubilant. 
One  of  them  spoke  in  good  French  to  Madeleine,  com 
plimenting  her  on  her  soup  and  on  the  wine.  "  I  told 
my  friends  I  knew  we  would  find  good  cheer  and  good 
beds  with  Madame  Brismantier,"  he  told  her  affably. 

Astonished  to  hear  her  name,  Madeleine  looked  at  him 
hard,  and  recognized,  in  spite  of  his  uniform,  a  well- 
to-do  man,  reputed  a  Swiss,  who  had  rented  a  house  for 
the  season,  several  summers  back,  on  a  hillside  not  far 
from  Mandrine.  He  had  professed  a  great  interest  in 
the  geology  of  the  region  and  was  always  taking  long 
walks  and  collecting  fossils.  Jules  had  an  amateur  in 
terest  in  fossils  also,  and  this,  together  with  the  admir 
ably  trained  voice  of  the  Swiss,  had  afforded  several 
occasions  of  social  contact.  The  foreigner  had  spent  an 
evening  or  two  with  them,  singing  to  Madeleine's  accom 
paniment.  And  once,  having  some  valuable  papers  left 
on  his  hands,  he  had  asked  the  use  of  the  Brismantier 
safe  for  a  night.  He  had  been  very  fond  of  children, 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  283 

and  had  had  always  a  jolly  greeting  for  little  Raoul,  who 
was  then  only  a  baby  of  two.  Madeleine  looked  at  him 
now,  too  stupefied  with  wonder  to  open  her  lips.  A 
phrase  from  "  An  die  feme  Geliebte,"  which  he  had 
sung  very  beautifully,  rang  in  her  ears,  sounding  faint 
and  thin  but  clear,  through  the  infernal  din  in  the 
street. 

She  turned  abruptly  and  went  back  into  the  kitchen. 
Standing  there,  before  the  stove,  she  said  suddenly,  as 
though  she  had  but  just  known  it,  "  Why,  he  was  a  spy, 
all  the  time !  "  She  had  not  thought  there  were  such 
peopk  as  spies  outside  of  cheap  books. 

She  was  just  putting  the  roast  on  the  table  when  some 
one  called  loudly  from  the  street.  The  men  at  the 
table  jumped  up,  went  to  the  window,  leaned  out,  ex 
changed  noisy  exultant  words,  cursed  jovially,  and  turned 
back  in  haste  to  tighten  the  belts  and  fasten  the  buttons 
and  hooks  which  they  had  loosened  in  anticipation  of  the 
feast.  The  spy  said  laughingly  to  Madeleine :  "  Your 
French  army  runs  away  so  fast,  madame,  that  we  cannot 
eat  or  sleep  for  chasing  it !  Our  advance  guard  is  always 
sending  back  word  to  hurry  faster,  faster !  " 

One  of  the  others  swept  the  roast  from  the  table  into 
a  brown  sack,  all  crammed  their  pockets  full  of  bread 
and  took  a  bottle  under  each  arm.  At  the  door  the  spy 
called  over  his  shoulder :  "  Sorry  to  be  in  such  a  hurry ! 
I  will  drop  you  a  card  from  Paris  as  soon  as  the  mails 
begin  again." 

They  clattered  down  the  stairs. 


284  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

Madeleine  bolted  the  door  and  sank  down  on  a  chair, 
her  teeth  chattering  loudly.  After  a  time  during  which 
she  vainly  strove  to  master  a  mounting  tide  of  pain  and 
sickness,  she  said :  "  Simone,  you  must  go  for  Sister  Ste. 
Lucie.  My  time  has  come.  Go  by  our  back  door, 
through  the  alley,  and  knock  at  the  side  door  of  the 
Hospice  .  .  .  you  needn't  be  gone  more  than  three 
minutes." 

Simone  went  downstairs,  terribly  afraid  to  venture 
out,  even  more  afraid  to  be  left  alone  with  her  mistress. 
Madeleine  managed  to  get  into  the  spare  bedroom,  away 
from  the  children's  room,  and  began  to  undress,  in  an 
anguish  of  mind  and  body  such  as  she  had  not  thought 
she  could  endure  and  live.  But  even  now  she  did  not 
know  what  was  before  her.  In  a  short  time  Simone 
came  back,  crying  and  wringing  her  hands.  A  sentry 
guarded  the  street  and  another  the  alley.  They  had 
thrust  her  back  into  the  house,  their  bayonets  glittering, 
and  one  had  said  in  French,  "  Forbidden;  no  go  out  till 
daylight."  She  had  tried  to  insist,  to  explain,  but  he 
had  struck  her  back  with  the  butt  end  of  his  rifle.  Oh, 
he  had  hurt  her  awfully!  She  cried  and  cried,  looking 
over  her  shoulder,  tearing  at  her  apron.  It  was  evident 
that  if  there  had  been  any  possibility  for  her  to  run 
away,  she  would  have  done  it,  anywhere,  any 
where  .  .  . 

Madeleine's  little  boy  was  born  that  night.  She,  who 
of  course  must  needs  have  her  mother  to  take  all  the  re- 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  285 

sponsibility,  and  the  nurse  whose  voice  was  agreeable  to 
her,  went  through  her  fiery  trial  alone,  with  no  help  but 
the  foolish  little  Simone,  shivering  and  gasping  in  hys 
teria.  She  was  nothing  but  a  pair  of  hands  and  feet  to 
be  animated  by  Madeleine's  will-power  and  intelligence. 
In  those  dreadful  hours  Madeleine  descended  to  the 
black  depths  of  her  agony  but  dared  never  abandon  her 
self  even  to  suffer.  At  every  moment  she  needed  to 
shock  Simone  out  of  her  panic  by  a  stern,  well-considered 
command. 

She  needed,  and  found,  strange,  unguessed  stores  of 
strength  and  resolution.  She  felt  herself  alone,  pitted 
against  a  malign  universe  which  wished  to  injure  her 
baby,  to  prevent  her  baby  from  having  the  right  birth 
and  care.  But  she  felt  herself  to  be  stronger  than  all 
the  malignity  of  the  universe.  Once,  in  a  moment's  lull 
during  the  fight,  she  remembered,  seeing  the  words,  zig 
zag  like  lightning  on  a  black  sky, — a  sentence  in  the  first 
little  history-book  she  had  studied  as  a  child, — "  The 
ancient  Gauls  said  they  feared  nothing,  not  enemies,  not 
tempest,  not  death.  Until  the  skies  fell  upon  their  heads, 
they  would  never  submit."  ...  "  They  were  my  ances 
tors  ! "  said  the  little  Gaulish  woman,  fighting  alone 
in  the  darkness.  She  clenched  her  teeth  to  repress 
a  scream  of  pain  and  a  moment  later  told  Simone,  quite 
clearly,  in  a  quiet  tone  of  authority,  just  what  to  do, 
again. 

Outside,  all  night  long,  there  thundered  the  rumbling 
passage  of  the  artillery  and  camions. 


HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

In  the  morning,  when  Sylvie  and  Raoul  awoke,  they 
found  Simone  crouched  in  a  corner  of  their  mother's 
room,  sobbing  endlessly  tears  of  sheer  nervous  exhaus 
tion.  But  out  from  their  mother's  white,  white  face  on 
the  pillow  looked  triumphant  eyes.  She  drew  the  covers 
down  a  little  and  lifted  her  arm.  "  See,  children,  a  little 
new  brother." 

As  she  spoke  she  thrust  out  of  her  mind,  with  a  vio 
lence  like  that  with  which  she  had  expelled  the  ruffian 
from  the  door,  the  thought  that  the  little  brother  would 
probably  never  see  his  father.  It  was  no  moment  to 
allow  herself  the  weakness  of  a  personal  sorrow.  She 
must  marshal  her  little  forces.  "  Come,  Sylvie  dear. 
Simone  is  all  tired  out;  you  must  get  us  something  to  eat, 
and  then  you  and  Simone  must  bring  in  all  you 
can  of  what  is  left  in  the  kitchen  and  hide  it  here  under 
mother's  bed."  She  had  thought  out  her  plan  in  the 
night. 

During  the  next  days  Madeleine  was  wholly  unable  to 
stand  on  her  feet.  From  her  bed  she  gave  her  orders — 
desperate,  last-resort  orders  to  a  defeated  garrison.  The 
apartment  was  constantly  invaded  by  ravenously  hungry 
and  thirsty  men,  but  her  room  was  not  entered.  The 
first  morning  the  door  to  her  room  had  been  opened 
brusquely,  and  a  gray-haired  under-officer  entered  hastily. 
He  stopped  short  when  he  saw  Madeleine's  drawn  white 
face  on  the  pillow,  with  the  little  red,  bald  head  beside 
her.  He  went  out  as  abruptly  as  he  had  gone  in  and 
chalked  something  on  the  door.  Thereafter  no  one  came 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  287 

in;  although  not  infrequently,  as  though  to  see  if  the 
chalked  notice  were  true,  the  door  was  opened  suddenly 
and  a  head  with  a  spiked  helmet  thrust  in.  This  inspec 
tion  of  a  sick  woman's -room  could  and  did  continually 
happen  without  the  slightest  warning.  Madeleine  was 
buffeted  by  an  angry  shame  which  she  put  aside  sternly, 
lest  it  make  her  unfit  to  nurse  her  baby. 

They  lived  during  this  time  on  what  happened  to  be 
left  in  the  kitchen,  after  that  first  day  of  pillage,  some 
packages  of  macaroni,  tapioca,  and  cornstarch,  part  of  a 
little  cheese,  some  salt  fish,  two  or  three  boxes  of  biscuits, 
a  little  sugar,  a  little  flour.  They  did  unsavory  cooking 
over  the  open  fire  till  their  small  supply  of  wood  gave 
out.  The  children  submitted  docilely  to  this  regime, 
cowed  by  their  mother's  fierce  command  not  for  an  in 
stant  to  go  out  of  her  sight.  But  the  little  maid,  volatile 
and  childish,  could  not  endure  life  without  bread.  She 
begged  to  be  allowed  to  go  out,  to  slip  along  the  alley  to 
the  Hospice  and  beg  a  loaf  from  Sister  Ste.  Lucie.  There 
must  be  bread  somewhere  in  town,  she  argued,  unable  to 
conceive  of  a  world  without  bread.  And  in  the  daytime 
the  sentries  would  let  her  pass. 

Madeleine  forbade  her  to  leave  the  room,  but  on  the 
third  day  when  her  mistress  was  occupied  with  the  baby 
she  slipped  out  and  was  gone.  She  did  not  come  back 
that  day  or  the  next.  They  never  saw  or  heard  of  her 
from  that  moment. 

Madeleine  and  the  children  continued  to  live  in  that 
one  room,  shaken  by  the  incessant  rumble  of  the  passing 


288  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

artillery  wagons  and  by  the  hurrying  tread  of  booted 
feet.  They  heard  now  and  again  incursions  into  the 
other  rooms  of  their  home,  and  as  long  as  there  were 
loud  voices  and  trampling  and  clattering  dishes,  the  chil 
dren  crept  into  bed  beside  Madeleine  and  the  baby,  cow 
ering  together  under  the  poor  protection  of  their  moth 
er's  powerless  arms.  They  never  dared  speak  above  a 
whisper  during  those  days.  They  heard  laughing,  shout 
ing,  cursing,  snoring  in  the  rooms  all  around  them.  Once 
they  heard  pistol  shots,  followed  by  a  great  splintering 
crash  of  glass  and  shouts  of  wild  mirth. 

Madeleine  lost  all  count  of  the  days,  of  everything  but 
the  diminishing  stock  of  food.  She  tried  repeatedly  to 
sit  up,  she  tried  to  put  her  feet  to  the  floor,  but  she  felt 
her  head  swim  and  fell  back  in  bed.  She  had  little 
strength  left  to  struggle  now.  The  food  was  almost 
gone,  and  her  courage  was  almost  gone.  As  though  the 
walls  of  the  room  were  closing  in  on  her,  the  approach 
of  the  spent,  beaten  desire  to  die  began  to  close  in  on 
her.  What  was  the  use  of  struggling  on?  If  she  could 
only  kill  the  children  and  herself  .  .  .  there  was  no  hope. 

One  morning  Sylvie  said  in  a  loud,  startled  whisper: 
"Oh,  maman,  they  are  going  the  other  way!  Back  to 
wards  Lorat  .  .  .  and  yet  they  are  still  hurrying  as  fast 
as  ever  .  .  .  faster !  " 

Madeleine  felt  her  hair  raise  itself  on  her  scalp.  She 
sat  up  in  bed.  "  Sylvie,  are  you  sure?  " 

And  when  the  child  answered,  always  in  her  strained 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  289 

whisper,  "  Yes,  yes,  I  am  sure,"  her  mother  sprang  out 
of  bed  with  a  bound  and  ran  to  the  window. 

It  was  true.  The  dusty-gray  tide  had  turned.  They 
were  raging  past  the  house,  the  horses  straining  at  the 
heavy  artillery  wagons,  lashed  into  a  clumsy  canter  by 
the  drivers,  leaning  far  forward,  straining,  urging;  the 
haggard  men,  reeling  in  fatigue,  stumbling  under  their 
heavy  packs,  pressing  forward  in  a  dog-trot;  the  officers 
with  red  angry  faces,  barking  out  incessant  commands 
for  more  haste  .  .  .  and  their  backs  were  turned  to 
Paris ! 

The  Frenchwoman,  looking  down  on  them,  threw  her 
arms  up  over  her  head  in  a  wild  gesture  of  exultation. 
They  were  going  back! 

She  felt  as  strong  as  ever  she  had  in  her  life.  She 
dressed  herself,  set  the  wretched  room  in  some  sort  of 
order,  and  managed  to  prepare  an  edible  dish  out  of 
soaked  tapioca  and  sugar.  The  children  ate  it  with  relish, 
comforted  by  their  mother's  new  aspect. 

About  two  o'clock  that  night  Madeleine  awoke  to  an 
awful  sense  of  impending  calamity.  Something  had  hap 
pened,  some  tremendous  change  had  come  over  the  world. 
She  lay  still  for  a  long  moment,  hearing  only  the  beating 
of  her  own  heart.  Then  she  realized  that  she  heard 
nothing  but  that,  that  the  thunder  of  the  trampling  feet 
had  stopped.  She  got  out  of  bed  carefully,  trying  not 
to  waken  the  children,  but  Sylvie,  her  nerves  aquiver, 
heard  and  called  out  in  a  frightened  whisper,  "  Maman, 
mamanf  What  is  it?"  She  caught  her  mother's  arm, 


290  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

and  the  two  went  together  to  the  window.  They  leaned 
out,  looked  to  right  and  left,  and  fell  to  weeping  in  each 
other's  arms.  Under  the  quiet  stars,  the  village  street 
was  perfectly  empty. 

The  next  morning  Madeleine  made  the  children  swal 
low  a  little  food  before,  all  together,  the  baby  in  his 
mother's  arms,  they  ventured  out  from  their  prison- 
room.  They  found  their  house  gutted  and  sacked  and 
sullied  to  the  remotest  corner.  The  old  brocade  on  the 
chairs  in  the  salon  had  been  slit  to  ribbons  by  sword- 
slashes,  the  big  plate-glass  windows  over  the  mantel 
pieces  had  each  been  shattered  into  a  million  pieces,  all 
the  silver  was  gone  from  the  drawers,  every  piece  of 
linen  had  disappeared,  the  curtains  had  been  torn  down 
and  carried  away,  and  every  bit  of  bedding  had 
gone,  every  sheet,  every  blanket,  every  eiderdown  quilt. 
The  mattresses  had  been  left,  each  having  been  cut 
open  its  entire  length  and  sedulously  filled  with 
filth. 

The  kitchen,  emptied  of  all  its  shining  copper  and 
enamel  utensils,  was  one  litter  of  splintered  wood,  rem 
nants  of  furniture  which  had  been  cut  up  with  the  ax  for 
fuel.  Madeleine  recognized  pieces  of  her  mahogany  beds 
there.  Through  the  kitchen  window  she  looked  down 
into  the  walled  space  which  had  been  the  garden  and  saw 
it  a  bare,  trampled  stable-yard,  with  heaps  of  manure 
at  each  end.  She  looked  at  all  this  in  perfect  silence,  the 
children  clinging  to  her  skirts,  the  baby  sleeping  on  her 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  391 

arm.  She  looked  at  it,  but  days  passed  before  she  really 
believed  that  what  she  saw  was  real. 

A  woman's  voice  called  quaveringly  from  the  landing : 
"Madame  Brismantier,  are  you  there?  Are  you  alive? 
The  Germans  have  gone/'  Madeleine  stepped  to  the 
landing  and  saw  old  Sister  Ste.  Lucie,  her  face  which 
had  always  been  so  rosy  and  fresh,  as  gray  as  ashes 
under  her  black-and-white  coif.  She  leaned  against  the 
wall  as  she  stood.  At  the  sight  of  the  sleeping  baby  in 
Madeleine's  arms,  the  gray  face  smiled,  the  wonderful 
smile  which  women,  even  those  vowed  to  childlessness, 
give  to  a  new  mother.  "  Oh,  your  baby  came,"  she  said. 
"Boy  or  girl?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Madeleine,  "  he  came.  A  boy.  A  nice 
little  boy."  For  one  instant  the  two  women  stood  there 
in  that  abomination  of  desolation,  with  death  all  around 
them,  looking  down  at  the  baby,  and  smiling. 

Then  Soeur  Ste.  Lucie  said :  "  There  is  nothing  left  in 
the  pharmacy,  I  see.  I  thought  maybe  they  might  have 
left  something,  by  chance,  but  I  see  everything  is  smashed 
to  pieces.  You  don't  happen  to  have  any  supplies  up  here, 
do  you?  We  need  bandages  horribly  at  the  Hospice, 
for  the  wounded.  There  are  forty  there." 

Madeleine  knew  the  minute  size  of  the  little  Hospice 
and  exclaimed:  "Forty!  Where  do  you  put  them?" 

"  Oh,  everywhere,  on  the  floor,  up  and  down  the  hall, 
in  the  kitchen.  But  we  haven't  a  thing  except  hot  water 
to  use  for  them;  all  the  sheets  were  torn  up  two  days 
ago,  what  they  hadn't  stolen!  If  I  only  had  a  little 


292  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

iodine,  or  any  sort  of  antiseptic.  Their  wounds  are  too 
awful,  all  infected,  and  nothing  ..." 

Without  knowing  it  Madeleine  took  a  first  step  for 
ward  into  a  new  life.  "  There's  plenty  of  everything," 
she  said.  "  I  hid  them  all  in  the  far  room  of  the  cellar." 

"  God  grant  '  they  '  didn't  find  them !  "  breathed  the 
nun. 

Madeleine  lighted  a  candle,  left  the  sleeping  baby  in 
the  charge  of  Sylvie,  and  went  with  Sceur  Ste.  Lucie 
down  into  the  cellar.  They  found  it  littered  and  blocked 
with  emptied  and  broken  bottles.  A  strange  hoarse 
breathing  from  a  dark  corner  frightened  them.  Lifting 
her  candle,  Madeleine  brought  to  view  a  German  soldier, 
dead-drunk,  snoring,  his  face  swollen  and  red.  The 
women  let  him  lie  as  an  object  of  no  importance  and 
turned  to  the  hanging  shelves.  They  heaved  a  long  sigh ; 
the  blind  was  still  there,  untouched.  Madeleine's  device 
was  successful. 

As  they  looked  among  the  heaped-up  supplies  from  the 
pharmacy  for  bandages  and  antiseptics,  Sceur  Ste.  Lucie 
told  Madeleine  very  briefly  what  had  been  happening. 
Madeleine  listened  in  a  terrible  silence.  Neither  she  nor 
the  nun  had  strength  to  spare  for  exclamations.  Nor 
could  any  words  of  theirs  have  been  adequate.  The  news 
needed  no  comment.  M.  le  Maire  was  dead,  shot  in  front 
of  the  Town  Hall,  on  the  ground  that  there  had  been 
weapons  found  in  one  of  the  houses.  "  You  know  in  the 
Bouvines'  house  they  had  some  Malay  creeses  and  a 
Japanese  sword  hanging  up  in  M.  Bouvines'  study,  things 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  293 

his  sailor  uncle  brought  back.  The  Mayor  never  thought 
to  take  those  down,  and  they  wouldn't  give  him  time  to 
explain.  M.  le  Cure  was  dead,  nobody  knew  or  ever 
would  know  why — found  dead  of  starvation,  strapped  to 
a  bed  in  an  attic  room  of  a  house  occupied  by  some 
German  officers.  Perhaps  he  had  been  forgotten  by  the 
person  who  had  tied  him  there.  ..."  The  nun's  voice 
died  away  in  sobs.  She  had  been  brought  up  under  M.  le 
Cure's  protection  all  her  life  and  loved  him  like  a  father. 

Madeleine  sorted  bandages  in  silence,  her  throat  very 
dry  and  harsh.  Later  Sceur  Ste.  Lucie  went  on,  try 
ing  to  speak  more  collectedly :  "  The  worst  of  trying  to 
care  for  these  wounded  is  not  being  able  to  understand 
what  they  say." 

"  How  so  ?  "  asked  Madeleine,  not  understanding  in 
the  least. 

"  Why,  I  don't  speak  German." 

Madeleine  stopped  short,  her  hands  full  of  bandages. 
"  Are  they  German  wounded  ?  Are  we  getting  these 
things  for  German  soldiers ?  " 

Sceur  Ste.  Lucie  nodded  gravely.  "  Yes,  I  felt  just 
so,  too,  at  first.  But  when  I  saw  them  wounded,  bleed 
ing,  so  sick,  worn  out.  .  .  .  How  would  you  like  Ger 
man  women  to  treat  your  husband  if  he  should  be 
wounded  in  Germany  ?  We  are  all  nothing  but  wretched 
sinners  in  the  sight  of  God.  And  are  we  not  taught  to 
do  good  to  our  enemies?  " 

Of  all  this  (which  meant  in  reality  simply  that  Soeur 
Ste.  Lucie  was  a  warm-hearted  woman  whose  profes- 


294  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

sional  habit  had  been  for  forty  years  to  succor  the  af 
flicted)  Madeleine  took  in  very  little  at  the  time,  although 
it  was  to  come  back  to  her  again  and  again.  At  the 
moment  she  thought  that  she  did  not  believe  a  single 
word  of  it.  She  certainly  did  not  at  all  think  that  we 
are  the  best  of  us  but  wretched  sinners,  and  she  had  as 
remotely  academic  a  belief  as  any  other  twentieth-century 
dweller  in  the  desirability  of  doing  good  to  your  enemies. 
The  idea  of  Jules  wounded  in  Germany  did  indeed  bring 
a  flood  of  confused  emotions  into  her  mind.  If  Ger 
many  should  be  invaded,  would  Frenchmen  be  stamping 
into  strangers'  houses  and  taking  the  food  out  of  the 
mouths  of  the  owners,  would  they  .  .  .  ? 

"  Well,"  said  Sceur  Ste.  Lucie,  impatient  of  her  trance- 
like  stare. 

It  was  none  of  what  she  had  been  thinking  which  now 
moved  Madeleine  to  say  automatically,  "  Oh,  of  course 
we'll  have  to  give  them  the  bandages  and  the  peroxide." 
She  could  not  have  named  the  blind  impulse  which  drove 
her  to  say  this,  beyond  that  a  sort  of  angry  self-respect 
was  mixed  with  it.  Her  head  ached  furiously,  whirling 
with  fatigue  and  lack  of  food,  her  back  ached  as  though 
it  were  being  beaten  with  hammers.  She  renounced  any 
attempt  to  think. 

"  Here,"  said  Sceur  Ste.  Lucie,  staggering  herself  with 
exhaustion.  "  The  baby  is  only  a  few  days  old.  You're 
not  fit  to  be  doing  this." 

Madeleine,  who  had  lain  flat  on  her  back  for  two  weeks 
after  the  birth  of  the  other  two  children,  shook  her  head. 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  295 

"  No,  no,  I  can  do  it  as  well  as  you.  You  look  fearfully 
tired.'' 

"  I  haven't  had  my  clothes  off  for  ten  days,"  said  the 
nun.  "  And  I'm  sixty-two  years  old." 

In  the  street  door,  with  her  basket  of  bandages  on  her 
arm,  Soeur  Ste.  Lucie  stood  looking  around  her  at  the 
desolate  filth-strewn  shop,  the  million  pieces  of  glass 
which  had  been  its  big  windows  covering  the  floor,  its 
counter  hacked  and  broken  with  axes.  She  said :  "  We 
haven't  any  mayor  and  the  priest  is  dead,  and  we  haven't 
any  pharmacy  and  the  baker  is  mobilized,  and  there  isn't 
one  strong,  well  man  left  in  town.  How  are  we  going  to 
live?" 

Madeleine  took  another  step,  hesitating,  along  the  new 
road.  She  leaned  against  the  counter  to  ease  her  ach 
ing  body  and  put  back  her  hair  to  look  around  her  at 
the  wreck  and  ruin  of  her  husband's  business.  She  said 
in  a  faint  voice :  "  I  wonder  if  I  could  keep  the  pharmacy 
open.  I  used  to  help  Jules  with  the  accounts.  I  know  a 
little  about  where  he  bought  and  how  he  kept  his  records. 
I  wonder  if  I  could — enough  for  the  simpler  things?" 

:*  You  have  already,"  said  the  nun,  as  she  went  away, 
"  and  the  first  things  you  have  given  out  are  band 
ages  for  your  enemies.  God  will  not  forget  that." 

Madeleine  received  this  with  an  impatient  shrug.  She 
was  not  at  all  glad  that  her  first  act  had  been  to  help  the 
suffering  among  her  enemies.  She  had  hated  doing  it, 
had  only  done  it  because  of  some  confused  sense  of 
decency.  She  heartily  wished  she  had  not  had  it  to  do. 


296  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

But  if  it  had  been  necessary,  she  would  have  done  it 
again  .  .  .  and  yet  to  do  it  for  those  men  who  had 
murdered  M.  le  Maire,  so  blameless  and  M.  le  Cure — so 
defenseless!  .  .  .  No,  these  were  not  the  same  men 
who  lay  bleeding  to  death  in  the  Hospice  to  whom  she 
had  sent  bandages.  They  had  not  murdered  ...  as  yet ! 

Her  head  throbbed  feverishly.  She  renounced  again 
the  effort  to  think,  and  thrusting  all  this  ferment  down 
into  her  subconsciousness  she  turned  to  the  urgent  needs 
of  the  moment.  It  seemed  to  her  that  she  could  not 
breathe  till  she  had  set  the  pharmacy  as  far  as  possible 
in  the  order  Jules  had  left  it.  This  feeling,  imperious  and 
intense,  was  her  only  refuge  against  her  certainty  that 
Jules  was  killed,  that  she  would  never  see  him  again. 
Without  an  attempt  to  set  to  rights  even  a  corner  of  the 
desolated  little  home,  upstairs,  she  began  toiling  up  and 
down  the  cellar  stairs  carrying  back  the  glass  jars,  the 
pots,  the  boxes,  and  bottles  and  drawers.  It  seemed  to 
her,  in  her  dazed  confusion,  that  somehow  she  was  doing 
something  for  Jules  in  saving  his  pharmacy  which  he  had 
so  much  cared  for,  that  she  was  almost  keeping  him 
from  dying  by  working  with  all  her  might  for  him 
there.  .  .  . 

In  the  middle  of  the  morning  she  went  upstairs  and 
found  that  Sylvie,  working  with  Raoul,  had  cleared  the 
kitchen  of  the  worst  of  the  rubbish.  In  a  pot-closet  under 
the  sink  there  were  two  old  saucepans  which  had  not  been 
stolen.  Madeleine  made  a  fire,  stoically  using  her  own 
broken-up  furniture,  and,  putting  a  few  potatoes  (the 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  297 

last  of  their  provisions)  on  to  boil,  sat  down  to  nurse 
the  hungry  baby. 

"  Maman  dear/'  said  Sylvie,  still  in  the  strained  whis 
per  of  the  days  of  terror.  She  could  not  speak  aloud  for 
weeks.  "  Maman  dear,"  she  whispered,  "  in  the  salon, 
in  the  dining-room,  I  wanted  to  try  to  clean  it,  but  it  is 
all  nasty,  like  where  animals  have  been." 

"  Hush !  "  said  her  mother  firmly.  "  Don't  think  about 
that.  Don't  look  in  there.  It'll  make  you  sick  if  you  do. 
Stay  here,  tend  the  fire,  watch  the  baby,  and  play  with 
Raoul."  She  outlined  this  program  with  decision  and 
hurried  back  downstairs  to  go  on  with  the  execution  of 
one  conceived  in  the  same  spirit.  If  she  could  only  get 
the  pharmacy  to  look  a  little  as  it  had  when  Jules  had 
left  it,  it  seemed  to  her  that  Jules  would  seem  less  lost 
to  her. 

She  shoveled  the  incredible  quantity  of  broken  glass 
back  through  the  shop  into  what  had  been  her  garden, 
hardening  herself  against  a  qualm  of  horror  at  the  closer 
view  of  the  wreckage  there.  The  two  big  sycamore  trees 
had  been  cut  down  and  sawn  into  lengths  to  use  for  fuel 
in  the  open  fire,  the  burned-out  embers  of  which  lay  in  a 
black  ring  where  the  arbor  had  stood. 

She  went  back  to  her  work  hastily,  knowing  that  if 
she  stopped  for  an  instant  to  look,  she  would  be  lost. 

At  noon  she  went  upstairs,  and  with  the  children 
lunched  on  potatoes  and  salt. 

She  was  putting  the  last  of  the  innumerable  drawers 
back  in  its  place,  after  having  tried  it  in  all  the  other 


298  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

possible  places,  when  a  poorly  dressed,  rough-haired, 
scrawny  little  boy  came  into  the  shop.  Madeleine  knew 
him  by  sight,  the  six-year-old  grandson  of  Madame 
Duguet,  a  bedridden,  old,  poor  woman  on  Poulaine 
Street.  The  little  boy  said  that  he  had  come  to  get  those 
powders  for  his  grandmother's  asthma.  She  hadn't  slept 
any  for  two  nights.  As  he  spoke  he  wound  the  string 
about  a  top  and  prepared  to  spin  it,  nonchalantly.  Look 
ing  at  his  cheerful,  dirty  little  face,  Madeleine  felt  her 
self  a  thousand  years  old,  separated  for  always  and  al 
ways  from  youth  which  would  never  know  what  she  had 
known. 

"  I  don't  know  anything  about  your  grandmother's 
asthma  powders,"  she  said.  The  little  boy  insisted,  as 
tonished  that  a  grown  person  did  not  know  everything. 
"  He  always  kept  them.  Grandmere  used  to  send  me 
twice  a  week  to  get  them.  Grandmere  will  scold  me 
awfully  if  I  don't  take  them  back.  She's  scolding  all  the 
time  now,  because  the  Germans  took  our  soup-kettle  and 
our  frying-pan.  We  haven't  got  anything  left  to  cook 
with." 

The  memory  of  her  immensely  greater  losses  rose 
burningly  to  Madeleine's  mind.  "  They  took  all  my 
sheets!"  she  cried  impulsively,—  •"  every  one!" 

"  Oh,"  said  the  little  boy  indifferently,  "  we  never  had 
any  sheets,  anyhow."  This  did  not  seem  an  important 
statement  to  him,  apparently;  but  to  Madeleine,  her  old 
world  shattered,  emerging  into  new  horizons,  beaten  upon 
by  a  thousand  new  impressions,  it  rang  loudly.  The 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  299 

Germans,  then,  had  only  put  her  in  the  situation  in  which 
a  woman,  like  herself,  had  always  lived  .  .  .  and  that 
within  a  stone's  throw  of  these  well-filled  linen-closets  of 
hers!  There  was  something  strange  about  that,  some 
thing  which  she  would  like  to  ponder,  if  only  her  head 
did  not  ache  so  terribly.  The  little  boy  said,  insistently, 
"  He  always  gave  me  the  powders,  right  away !  " 

Through  obscure  complicated  mental  processes,  of 
which  she  had  only  the  dimmest  perceptions,  Jules  had 
always  given  the  powders  .  .  .  how  strange  it  was  that 
precisely  a  bedridden  woman  who  had  most  need  of  them 
should  have  owned  no  sheets  .  .  .  there  came  to  her  a 
great  desire  to  send  that  old  woman  the  medicine  she 
needed.  "  You  go  outside  and  spin  your  top  for  a 
while,"  she  said  to  the  child;  "I'll  call  you  when  I'm 
ready/' 

She  went  upstairs.  Holding  her  skirts  high  to  keep 
them  out  of  the  filth,  she  picked  her  way  to  the  bookcase. 
Books  were  scattered  all  about  the  room,  torn,  cut, 
trampled  on,  defiled;  but  for  the  most  part  those  with 
handsome  bindings  had  been  chosen  for  destruction.  On 
the  top  shelf,  sober  in  their  drab,  gray-linen  binding, 
stood  Jules'  big  record-books,  intact.  She  carried  down 
an  armful  of  them  to  the  pharmacy,  and  opened  the  lat 
est  one,  the  one  which  Jules  had  put  away  with  his  own 
hand  the  day  he  had  left  her. 

The  sight  of  the  pages  covered  with  Jules'  neat,  clear 
handwriting  brought  a  rush  of  scalding  tears  to  her 
eyes.  Her  bosom  heaved  in  the  beginning  of  sobs.  She 


300  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

laid  down  the  book,  and,  taking  hold  of  the  counter  with 
all  her  strength,  she  forced  herself  to  draw  one 
long,  regular  breath  after  another,  holding  her  head 
high. 

When  her  heart  was  beating  quietly  again,  quietly 
and  heavily,  in  her  breast,  she  opened  the  book  and  be 
gan  studying  the  pages.  Jules  set  everything  down  in 
writing,  it  being  his  idea  that  a  pharmacist  had  no  other 
defense  against  making  those  occasional  mistakes  in 
evitable  to  human  nature,  but  which  must  not  occur  in 
his  profession. 

Madeleine  read :  "  March  10,  sold  100  quinine  pills  to 
M.  Augier.  Stock  low.  Made  100  more,  using  quinine 
from  the  Cochard  Company's  laboratories.  Filled  pre 
scription  ..."  Madeleine's  eyes  leaped  over  the  hiero 
glyphics  of  the  pharmaceutical  terms  and  ran  up  and 
down  the  pages,  filled  with  such  items,  looking  for  the 
name  Duguet.  She  had  almost  given  up  when  she  saw, 
dated  July  30,  1914,  the  entry:  "Made  up  fresh  supply 
Mme.  Duguet  asthma  powders,  prescription  457.  Dr. 
Millier.  Drawer  No.  17.'* 

Madeleine  ran  behind  the  counter  and  pulled  out  No. 
17.  She  found  there  a  little  pasteboard  box  marked, 
"  Duguet." 

"Oh,  boy,  little  boy!"  she  called. 

When  the  child  came  in  she  asked,  "  Did  your  grand 
mother  ever  get  any  other  medicine  here?  " 

"  No,"  said  the  grandson  of  the  bedridden  woman, 
"  she  hasn't  got  anything  else  the  matter  with  her." 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  301 

"  Well,"  said  the  pharmacist's  wife,  "  here  is  her 
medicine."  She  put  the  box  in  his  hand. 

"  Oh,  we  ne\er  get  more  than  four  at  a  time,"  he  told 
her.  "  She  n  ;ver  has  the  money  to  pay  for  more.  Here 
it  is.  Grar  .y  hid  it  in  her  hair  so  the  Germans  wouldn't 
get  it.  r  te  hid  all  we  have.  She's  got  more  than  five 
francs,  A\  safe." 

He  put  a  small  silver  coin  in  her  hand  and  departed. 

The  mention  of  the  meager  sum  of  hidden  money 
made  Madeleine  think  of  her  own  dextrously  concealed 
little  fortune.  She  had  noticed  at  once  on  entering  the 
shop  that  the  arrangement  of  false  shelves  which  con 
cealed  the  safe  had  not  been  detected,  and  was  intact. 
She  pushed  the  spring,  the  shelves  swung  back,  and  dis 
closed  the  door  of  the  safe  just  as  usual.  She  began  to 
turn  the  knob  of  the  combination  lock.  It  worked 
smoothly  and  in  a  moment  the  heavy  door  swung  open. 
The  safe  was  entirely  empty,  swept  clear  of  all  the 
papers,  titles,  deeds,  bonds  which  had  covered  its 
shelves. 

As  actually  as  though  he  stood  there  again,  Madeleine 
saw  the  polite  pseudo-Swiss  geological  gentleman,  thank 
ing  Jules  for  the  temporary  use  of  his  excellent  safe. 

She  was  petrified  by  this  new  blow,  feeling  the  very 
ground  give  way  under  her  feet.  A  cold,  cold  wind  of 
necessity  and  stress  blew  upon  her.  The  walled  and  shel 
tered  refuge  in  which  she  had  lived  all  her  life  was  ut 
terly  cast  down  and  in  ruins.  The  realization  came  to 
her,  like  something  intolerable,  indecent,  that  she,  Made- 


302  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

leine  Brismantier,  was  now  as  poor  as  that  old  bedridden 
neighbor  had  been  all  her  life  .   .   .  all  her  life.  .   .   . 

Somehow,  that  had  something  to  do  with  those  sheets 
which  she  had  had  and  the  other  woman  had  not  .  .  . 
her  mind  came  back  with  a  mortal  sickness  to  the  knowl 
edge  that  she  had  now  nothing,  nothing  to  depend  upon 
except  her  own  strength  and  labor — just  like  a  poor 
woman.  She  was  a  poor  woman! 

Somebody  was  weeping  and  tugging  at  her  skirts. 
She  looked  down  blindly.  It  was  Raoul,  her  little  son. 
He  was  sobbing  and  saying :  "  Sylvie  said  not  to  come, 
but  I  couldn't  stand  it  any  more.  I'm  hungry!  I'm 
hungry,  and  there  isn't  a  thing  left  upstairs  to  eat!  I'm 
hungry !  I'm  hungry !  " 

Madeleine  put  her  hand  to  her  head  and  thought. 
What  had  happened  ?  Oh  yes,  all  their  money  had  been 
stolen,  all  ...  but  Raoul  was  hungry,  the  children  must 
have  something  to  eat.  "  Hush,  my  darling,"  she  said 
to  the  little  boy,  "  go  back  upstairs  and  tell  Sylvie  to 
come  here  and  look  out  for  the  shop  while  I  go  out  and 
find  something  to  eat." 

She  went  down  the  silent,  empty  street,  before  the 
silent  empty  houses  staring  at  her  out  of  their  shattered 
windows,  and  found  not  a  soul  abroad.  At  the  farm, 
in  the  outskirts  of  town,  she  saw  smoke  rising  from 
the  chimney  and  went  into  the  courtyard.  The  young 
farmer's  wife  was  there,  feeding  a  little  cluster  of 
hens,  and  weeping  like  a  child.  She  stared  at  the 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  303 

newcomer  for  a  moment  without  recognizing  her. 
Madeleine  looked  ten  years  older  than  she  had  a  fort 
night  ago. 

"  Oh,  madame,  we  had  three  hundred  hens,  and  they 
left  us  just  these  eight  that  they  couldn't  catch !  And  they 
killed  all  but  two  of  our  thirty  cows;  we'd  raised  them 
ourselves  from  calves  up.  They  killed  them  there  before 
the  very  door  and  cooked  them  over  a  fire  in  the  court 
yard,  and  they  broke  up  everything  of  wood  to  burn  in 
the  fire,  all  our  hoes  and  rake  handles,  and  the  farm- 
wagon  and  .  .  .  oh,  what  will  my  husband  say  when 
he  knows ! " 

Madeleine  had  a  passing  glimpse  of  herself  as  though 
in  a  convex  mirror,  distorted  but  recognizable.  She  said, 
"  They  didn't  hurt  you  or  your  husband's  mother,  did 
they?" 

"  No,  they  were  drunk  all  the  time  and  they  didn't 
know  what  they  were  doing  mostly.  We  could  hide 
from  them." 

'  Then  your  husband  will  not  care  at  all  about  the 
cows  and  pigs  and  farm-wagons,"  said  Madeleine  very 
firmly,  as  though  she  were  speaking  to  Sylvie.  The 
young  farmer's  wife  responded  automatically  to  the  note 
of  authority  in  Madeleine's  voice.  "  Don't  you  think  he 
will?"  she  asked  simply,  reassured  somewhat,  wiping 
away  her  tears. 

"  No,  and  you  are  very  lucky  to  have  so  much  left," 
said  Madeleine.  "  I  have  nothing,  nothing  at  all  for  my 
children  to  eat,  and  no  money  to  buy  anything."  She 


304  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

heard  herself  saying  this  with  astonishment  ^s  though 
it  were  the  first  time  she  had  heard  it. 

The  young  wife  was  horrified,  sympathetic,  a  little 
elated  to  have  one  whom  she  had  always  considered  her 
superior  come  asking  her  for  aid;  for  Madeleine  stood 
there,  her  empty  basket  on  her  arm,  asking  for  aid,  si 
lently,  helplessly. 

"  Oh,  we  have  things  left  to  eat ! "  she  said.  She  put 
some  eggs  in  Madeleine's  basket,  several  pieces  of  veal 
left  from  the  last  animal  killed  which  the  Germans  had 
not  had  time  entirely  to  consume,  and,  priceless  treasure, 
a  long  loaf  of  bread.  '  Yes,  the  wife  of  the  baker  got 
up  at  two  o'clock  last  night,  when  she  heard  the  last  of 
the  Germans  go  by,  and  started  to  heat  her  oven.  She 
had  hidden  some  flour  in  barrels  behind  her  rabbit 
hutches,  and  this  morning  she  baked  a  batch  of  bread. 
It's  not  so  good  as  the  baker's  of  course,  but  she  says  she 
will  do  better  as  she  learns." 

Madeleine  turned  back  down  the  empty,  silent  street 
before  the  empty  silent  houses  with  their  wrecked  win 
dows.  A  child  came  whistling  along  behind  her,  the  little 
grandson  of  the  bedridden  Madame  Duguet.  Madeleine 
did  what  she  had  never  done  before  in  her  life.  She 
stopped  him,  made  him  take  off  his  cap  and  put  into  it 
a  part  of  her  loaf  of  bread  and  one  of  the  pieces  of 
meat. 

"  Oh,  meat !  "  cried  the  child.  "  We  never  had  meat 
before!" 

He  set  off  at  a  run  and  disappeared. 


LA  PHARMACIENNE  305 

As  she  passed  the  butcher-shop,  she  saw  an  old  man 
hobbling  about  on  crutches,  attempting  to  sweep  up  the 
last  of  the  broken  glass.  It  was  the  father  of  the  butcher. 
She  stepped  in,  and  stooping,  held  the  dustpan  for  him. 
He  recognized  her,  after  a  moment's  surprise  at  the 
alteration  in  her  expression,  and  said,  "  Merci,  madame." 
They  worked  together  silently  a  moment,  and  then  he 
said :  "  I'm  going  to  try  to  keep  Louis'  business  open  for 
him.  I  think  I  can  till  he  gets  back.  The  war  can't  be 
long.  You,  madame,  will  you  be  going  back  to  your 
parents?" 

Madeleine  walked  out  without  speaking.  She  could 
not  have  answered  him  if  she  had  tried.  In  front  of  the 
Town  Hall  she  saw  a  tall  old  woman  in  black  toiling 
up  the  steps  with  a  large  package  under  each  arm.  She 
put  down  her  basket  and  went  to  help.  It  was  the  white- 
haired  wife  of  the  old  mayor,  who  turned  a  ghastly  face 
on  Madeleine  to  explain :  "  I  am  bringing  back  the  papers 
to  put  them  in  place  as  he  always  kept  them.  And  then 
I  shall  stay  here  to  guard  them  and  to  do  his  work  till 
somebody  else  can  come."  She  laid  the  portfolios  down 
on  a  desk  and  said  in  a  low,  strange  voice,  looking  out 
of  the  window :  "  It  was  before  that  wall.  I  heard  the 
shots/' 

Madeleine  clasped  her  hands  together  tightly,  convul 
sively,  in  a  gesture  of  utter  horror,  of  utter  sympathy, 
and  looked  wildly  at  the  older  woman.  The  wife  of  the 
mayor  said :  "  I  must  go  back  to  the  house  now  and  get 
more  of  the  papers.  Everything  must  be  in  order."  She 


3o6  HOME  FIRES  IN  FRANCE 

added,  as  they  went  down  the  steps  together :  "  What 
will  you  do  about  going  on  with  your  husband's  business? 
Will  you  go  back  to  live  with  your  mother  ?  We  need  a 
pharmacy  so  much  in  town.  There  will  be  no  doctor, 
you  know.  You  would  have  to  be  everything  in  that 
way." 

This  time  Madeleine  answered  at  once :  "  Yes,  oh  yes, 
I  shall  keep  the  pharmacy  open.  I  already  know  about 
the  accounts  and  the  simple  things.  And  I  have  thought 
how  I  can  study  my  husband's  books  on  pharmacy,  at 
night  after  the  children  are  in  bed.  I  can  learn.  Jules 
learned." 

She  stooped  to  pick  up  her  basket.  The  other  woman 
went  her  way.  Madeleine  stepped  forward  into  a  new 
and  awful  and  wonderful  world  along  a  new  and  thorny 
and  danger-beset  path  into  a  new  and  terrifying  and 
pleasureless  life. 

A  wave  of  something  stern  and  mighty  swelled  within 
her.  She  put  down  her  head  and  walked  forward 
strongly,  as  though  breasting  and  conquering  a  great 
wind. 


BY      SIMEON      STRUNSKY 

PROFESSOR  LATIMER'S  PROGRESS 

The  "  sentimental  journey "  of  a  middle-aged 
American  scholar  upon  whose  soul  the  war  has  come 
down  heavily,  and  who  seeks  a  cure — and  an  answer 
— in  a  walking  trip  up-State. 

"  The  war  has  produced  no  other  book  like  *  Professor 
Latimer's  Progress,'  with  its  sanative  masculine  blend  of  deep 
feeling,  fluid  intelligence,  and  heart-easing  mirth,  its  people 
a  joyous  company.  It  is  a  spiritual  adventure,  the  adventure 
of  the  American  soul  in  search  of  a  new  foothold  in  a  totter 
ing  world.  We  have  so  many  books  of  documents,  of  animus, 
or  argument ;  what  a  refreshment  to  fall  in,  for  once  in  a 
way,  with  a  book  of  that  quiet  creative  humor  whose  '  other 
name'  is  wisdom." — The  Nation.  (Illustrated,  $1.40  net.) 


LITTLE  JOURNEYS  TOWARDS  PARIS 

By  W.  HOHENZOLLERN,  translated  and  adapted  for 
unteutored  minds  by  SIMEON  STRUNSKY.  75  cents  net. 

"  If  only  the  Germans  could  be  supplied  with  translations 
of  this  exquisite  satire  they  would  die  laughing  at  the  grisly 
joke  on  themselves.  Not  only  funny,  it  is  a  final  reductio 
ad  absurdum  of  the  Hun  philosophy." — Chicago  Tribune. 


BELSHAZZAR  COURT 

Or  Village  Life  in  New  York  City 

Graceful  essays  about  the  average  citizen  in  his 
apartment  house,  in  the  street,  at  the  theater,  the 
baseball  park,  with  his  children,  etc.  $1.35  net. 

HENRY     HOLT     AND      COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


BY     MARGARET     WIDDEMER 

NOVELS 

THE  WISHING-RING  MAN 

A  romance  of  a  New  England  summer  colony. 
$1.50  net. 

"  Margaret  Widdemer,  who  says  she  likes  happy  stories, 
proves  it  by  writing  them  for  other  people  to  read.  .  .  .  The 
book  is  full  of  charm,  amusing  incident,  and  gay  conversa 
tion;  and  the  interest  in  the  situation  holds  to  the  last  half 
page." — N.Y.  Evening  Post. 


YOU'RE  ONLY  YOUNG  ONCE 

Miss  Widdemer's  new  novel  is  the  story  of  youth's 
romance  as  it  came  to  the  five  girls  and  three  boys 
of  a  happy  American  family.  $1.50  net. 

POETRY 

FACTORIES,  AND  OTHER  POEMS 

Second  printing.     $1.30  net. 

"  An  art  which  speaks  ever  so  eloquently  for  itself.  .  .  . 
Splendid  effort  both  in  thought  and  execution,  and  ranks 
with  the  cry  of  the  children  as  voiced  by  Mrs.  Browning." — 
San  Francisco  Chronicle. 

"Among  the  foremost  of  American  versifiers  when  she 
touches  the  great  passionate  realities  of  life." — Living  Age. 

THE  OLD  ROAD  TO  PARADISE 

A  collection  of  the  poems  that  have  appeared  since 
*  Factories.  "  $1.25  net. 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA   LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
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SEP  28  192Q 


JAN 


FEB    1  1924 


MAR    13 


m  i, 


MAY  191981 

IEC.CIR.  Mffif  633 


50m-7,'lf 


m<§LiY  LIBRARIES 


00550355=13 


415055 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

*~ 


